


In Carnage, You Bloom

by lyreine



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Animal Death, Child Abuse, M/M, More characters to come but don't want to spoil much, probably slow burn, random side character OCs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27128416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyreine/pseuds/lyreine
Summary: Injured in battle, Aphelios finds himself face-to-face with an enigmatic “artist” who will stop at nothing to make his magnum opus. But it won’t be as easy as counting from one to four.-(Summary subject to change)
Relationships: Aphelios/Khada Jhin
Comments: 36
Kudos: 72





	1. The Weapon of the Faithful

**Author's Note:**

> Aphelios is my favorite champion. If Riot patch notes won't show him a lot of love, then I'll just have to do it myself yeah?
> 
> Also, I took a lot of liberty with the lore here. I tried to look into stuff about Targon, but honestly it seems pretty bare bones. I have ideas on where this fic will go, but it might take me a while to write. This is supposed to take place shortly after Jhin escapes imprisonment from Tuula following the end of the Noxian invasion on Ionia.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aphelios goes on a typical recon mission, but it doesn't end up too well.

It had been a long day in New Targon, the unofficial capital city of Targon governed by the Solari. As far as weekly reconnaissance missions went, this one was simply a bore—a result that Aphelios was thankful for. He had trailed multiple high-ranking officials through meetings and town halls, eavesdropping on their agendas from the shadows. Alune had cast an illusion over his attire to mask it as Solari clothing. The spell was incredibly detailed, even removing the facial tattoos indicative of his faith. But in order for it to remain intact, Aphelios had to be careful not to come into physical contact with anyone — even a subtle brush could shatter the illusion and betray his identity. 

Aphelios wouldn’t have minded simply donning a red cloak and calling it a day, but Alune insisted on the illusion, seeming offended at even entertaining the thought of her brother dressing up as one of the enemy. 

_Not to mention they look awfully drab. Doesn’t suit you_.

Personally, Aphelios didn’t see the difference between using an actual disguise and using an illusion. But if it made Alune happy, he was willing to concede.

At each and every gathering, Aphelios waited with bated breath to see if certain subjects would be discussed. His job was to report any plans that might endanger their people back to the Lunari Council. Usually, the news would revolve around new organized manhunts—or “moonhunts,” as they liked to call them— for Targonians who had been deemed heretics. At the peak of Solari militarism during the formation of New Targon, even civilian militias were dispatched for the sake of hunting down members of their enemy faith. It was Aphelios’ duty to sabotage such plans and guide refugees to Stella Lagos, the last bastion of the Lunari. 

But luckily, Aphelios mused, organized violence against his people had not been on the Solari Order’s agenda for this week. Instead, the major topic of discussion was in-fighting amongst the Solari themselves. It had been two months since the Summer Solstice and the election of their new Lord Commander: Leona, the human host of the Aspect of the Sun. From what Aphelios could tell, Leona was not favorably received by the Solari elders, and many wished that the cosmic being would have chosen someone else as its host. He heard scattered accusations of Leona as a traitor and usurper— even some wayward comments that she was a Lunari puppet. Leona wanted to focus on the development of New Targon rather than continuing imperialist expansion across the continent. Unlike the older generation of Solari, to Leona the vision of a Runeterra under one faith wasn’t as appealing. She declared that she did not see her faith as a weapon.

The reveal of Leona’s supposed true intentions surprised Aphelios just as much as they did to any militant Solari. He had expected her to rain destruction upon Targon, not backing down until every last Lunari was rounded up and executed. After all, just two years ago she had played a pivotal role in the establishment of New Targon. Countless Lunari had died by her own hand. Aphelios was still skeptical; he doubted that he would ever view a Solari as a potential ally.

_We’ll talk about Leona later. Now, we must go._

She was right. The sun was setting, and an unofficial curfew fell upon the city. There would be time to opine upon the internal politics of New Targon later. If Aphelios stood outside and wandered around any longer, it would certainly look suspicious. After he took a few wrong turns outside of the city to make sure he was not being followed, he headed north towards his home in the desolate outskirts of Targon. While everything outside the capital city was technically Old Targon, most only referenced the northern front as such. It was mostly forest and wilderness, and for centuries saw very little human settlement. Only when the Lunari were driven out of Targon proper did they deign to inhabit that part of the land. It was far from Mount Targon, the holy site for both Lunari and Solari. 

As night fell, Aphelios allowed himself to relax and slow his pace, appreciating the forest landscape and breathing in fresh air without fear of getting sand in his nose. New Targon and its surrounding area was so barren and lifeless. In the city, Aphelios could count on one hand how many trees he had seen. Some houses had potted plants displayed outside, but even a majority of those were fake. To the Solari, the Sun provided life to all. Life forms without human-like sentience were seen as rivals vying for the Sun’s finite attention, and thus were unnecessary. In its efforts to emulate the once-mighty empire of Shurima, New Targon seemed to have copied its aesthetics, but not its basic science. 

He could hardly believe how uneventful the day had been. 

_It is surprising. A waning crescent often promises misfortune._

Aphelios frowned. Wasn’t his sister usually the optimistic one?

He sensed a defensive tone to Alune’s voice as she corrected him: _Cautiously optimistic. And regardless, still superstitious._

Her words of caution were eerily apt. Sure enough, the Moon did not lie. Not much later into the night, Aphelios had what he very much considered an unfortunate encounter. Deep in the woods, he wouldn’t have expected it either.

It started with a cough. Aphelios promptly stopped in his tracks. He was particularly sensitive to the rhythm of his breathing, which provided the largest clue to the state of his own physical health whenever he had to ingest the noctum’s essence for a mission.

Smoke. He could see little wisps in the air, and identified the source of it coming from about a mile away. 

_Not a wildfire_.

Someone had set a fire. For what reason?

 _Hopefully not for human sacrifice_.

His sister’s statement wasn’t made entirely in jest. Aphelios didn’t put it past the Solari to burn someone alive. In fact, the only reason Aphelios believed it to be unlikely here was simply that the Solari would’ve opted for a public immolation. What was the point of an execution dozens of miles away from the city? It seemed a bit tame, even humane. Like putting down an animal in the forest.

_And I thought I said something wicked. Never change, brother._

Aphelios scoffed as he navigated the Targonian backwoods, following the smoke in the air. He could hardly smell it, but a flock of birds flying in the opposite direction confirmed he was on the right path. 

His mind wandered as he continued onwards. Alune knew as well as he did that if he were to lead the Lunari, they wouldn’t be in hiding. The Lunari elders had gone soft, and they were terrified to put a proper stand against the Solari ever since the formation of New Targon. Thousands of Lunari had been displaced or killed, leaving only hundreds left. Solari warriors measured their worth in terms of Lunari blood spilled. There was not a single high-ranking official of New Targon who did not personally bloody their hands with the slaughter of Aphelios’ people.

As it always did when he reflected on the Solari’s crimes, devastating memories were coming back to Aphelios. A crippling fusion of emotions were threatening to boil over. He paused, breathing deeply and leaned his hand against a tree to regain his balance. He couldn’t tell if he wanted to scream or curl up in a ball on the floor and just cry.

 _Aphelios, I know your rage. Your sadness. If the noctum’s essence isn’t enough to keep those emotions at bay for now, then let me help you._ Alune’s tone was firm yet coaxing. He felt his anger simmer down, and although he was still immersed in memories of his childhood home being burned down, he felt...nothing. Was she using magic to influence his own feelings? Was she going too far?

...He had no opinion. Couldn’t have one at the moment.

Aphelios moved onwards, re-focusing his priorities. He was close to reaching a forest clearing; the smoke was coming from ahead. Minutes later, he heard voices and saw a group of people huddled around a campfire. It was a mix of men and women, both young and old, dressed in various degrees of battle-ready garb. Some of them stood and wore heavy-duty chainmail with weapons at the ready, while others were sitting or squatting and dressed more casually as if at a marketplace. But they all had one thing in common: an all-too familiar sigil embedded on their clothing.

Solari.

A flash of fury ignited and immediately dissipated within Aphelios. As quick as the emotion had come, it was gone. Unnaturally erased. He knew that without Alune’s influence, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from engaging the group right then and there. Instead, he moved as close as he could to the group without entering the clearing. Aphelios looked down as he walked, trying to obscure the sound of his footsteps and avoid the crunch of any leaves on the ground.

Aphelios concentrated and focused on absorbing the conversation. It was a hodgepodge group of Solari, and there had to be good reason for them to be so far away from the capital. There was no need to fight. Not yet. Alune echoed the same sentiment. _Just think of it as more recon._

“So is it true? Will the recovery of this unholy artifact reverse our excommunication?” asked one robe-cladded woman skeptically, running her fingers through long, auburn-colored hair before gesturing towards something that Aphelios couldn’t quite see from his position. She seemed to be pointing at a weapon one of the more heavily armored Solari was holding.

“That’s just the cherry on top, Iméra. The Order would not turn us away if we tried to re-enter the city,” said the man to her right, grinning with smug satisfaction. He brandished his sword and licked his lips. “You have the finest old guard right here.”

“How disgraceful of them. Are they that desperate to re-enlist us?” questioned a male, with mild disgust in his voice. Aphelios couldn’t tell which one of them it was; it could’ve been the one with the aforementioned artifact.

“Right. There’s been a shortage of soldiers since Leona did away with mandatory conscription,” said the auburn-haired woman called Iméra, nodding along. She adjusted her sitting position and Aphelios caught the glint of a dagger at her waist. “A _very_ large shortage. The Noxians might try us next, and...well, we gotta defend against whatever the hell has been going on in Shurima.”

So they were likely all armed after all. It was naive to think some of them weren’t properly equipped. 

“What a terrible time for her reforms. What is Leona even thinking?” piped up a girl wearing a sturdy chestplate, tapping her foot impatiently on the ground. She appeared to be the youngest one in the group.

_She looks like our age._

Aphelios grimaced. This Solari girl had likely spent her formative years growing up in the aftermath of New Targon’s establishment— but on the other side. If she had been a child soldier, then she could’ve been responsible for the deaths of Lunari just as any adult would be. 

None of them were innocent.

The Solari continued discussing internal politics as Aphelios walked around to get a closer look at the “unholy artifact” that one of them had gotten their hands on. From what he could tell, this was a group of Solari who had been exiled from the capital. It seemed that they had been wandering throughout Old Targon, and coincidentally had ended up not too far from Stella Lagos. Aphelios doubted that they knew of the secret Lunari fortress, but they were still dangerously close. Hopefully, they would be heading back towards the capital. The group had been discussing a way to be re-welcomed by the ruling Order, and appeared to have found something to demand its interest. 

Aphelios had an inkling of an idea of what it might be, and he was right. It was easy to identify as soon as he got a glimpse of it. One of the armored individuals was holding onto a scimitar with a faint glow, reflecting the waning crescent Moon above. Somehow, the Solari had gotten ahold of a blessed Lunari weapon; this one in particular was a mercurial scimitar, one that was enchanted to provide immunity to certain spells. But...

There was something even more distinct about this weapon. Aphelios knew Alune was thinking the same. He had to get a better look at it...

“...arrive at sunrise. They’ll let us have an audience and—” the man with the wide grin was saying, but suddenly perked his head towards Aphelios’ direction. He glowered at the group, putting a finger to his lips. “Fotiá, stand still for one second.”

The girl tapping her foot, Fotiá, jolted at the callout and dropped her sword in surprise at the sharp seriousness of the man’s voice. It met the ground with a loud _clang_. As everyone looked towards the sword, Aphelios quickly withdrew and hid within the forest. Had he been spotted?

The clearing was completely silent for a few moments before someone spoke again. It was Iméra.

“We’re being watched,” she snarled. In the blink of an eye, her hand moved to the dagger at her waist—

Aphelios ducked just as he heard Alune scream: _Get down!_

The thought was practically deafening, echoing inside Aphelios’ head. Even if he hadn’t consciously moved his body aside, Alune’s voice was startling enough to force him to lose his balance. 

When the echo subsided a few moments later, Aphelios looked up to see Iméra’s dagger lodged in the tree, mere inches from the top of his head. The woman clearly had both killer intent and accuracy— was she a trained assassin? Who was Aphelios dealing with?

“Come on out, eavesdropper! We will not hesitate to call down a solar flare upon where you stand.” A new voice called out. This one was male and enhanced with magic to amplify his volume, sounding as if he were shouting right beside Aphelios. It was rather excessive.

So he had indeed been spotted. Under any other circumstance, without the influence of the noctum’s essence and Alune’s magic, perhaps Aphelios would’ve panicked. Instead, he calmly assessed the situation. Aphelios was skeptical that any of them could cast such high-level solar magic, especially after sunset, but he decided not to call their bluff. 

_Retreat! We must get out of here!_

And to where? They would follow him all the way to Stella Lagos. No, there was only one option. While Aphelios usually deferred to Alune’s directives more often than not, he thought retreat was almost certainly a foolish decision in this case. Aphelios rose and walked back towards the clearing, revealing himself to the Solari. He could feel Alune tugging at his mind the entire time, trying to make him turn back. He refused. Alune had to think of matters beyond self-preservation. He couldn’t let them discover the Lunari bastion, and he was willing to take the mercurial scimitar by force.

“Who is that?”

“A spy from New Targon?”

“Is he one of us?”

“He doesn’t look like he’s from Targon at all.”

The Solari immediately began talking amongst themselves. Aphelios realized that Alune’s illusion was still in effect. To others, he was dressed just like a Solari youth from New Targon. Aphelios continued to walk forward, wondering if there was a scenario where he could get closer to swiftly make work of them all at once. As he began to run through various battle scenarios in his head, Alune relented on her pleas for him to retreat. It was too late now. She resigned herself to help Aphelios plan an effective onslaught. _Can you take them all on at once?_

If he could get near enough. Aphelios excelled at close-quarter combat. But about a dozen feet short of where he wanted to engage the Solari, Aphelios stopped dead in his tracks. Alune had gone deathly silent, concentrating hard on a spell.

“Stop! Stop right there!” shouted the mage boy again, pointing at Aphelios. The tips of his fingers were glowing.

The other Solari looked at the boy in confusion. Aphelios curled his lip. He needed to get closer…

“He’s most certainly not Solari! It’s an illusory disguise!”

Alune _tsk_ -ed as the illusion was dispelled and her magic fell through. _Shit!_

Rarely did his sister ever curse, but there was really nothing more apt she could say in reaction to the spell being broken. The Solari raised their weapons in unison at Aphelios. They said nothing more, recognizing that a member of the enemy faith was present. Their expressions ranged from shock to anger to fear, but with their body language they all declared an unspoken desire to end him right then and there. Alune steeled herself, understanding that the fight was about to break out. 

“Damned heretic!” shouted a burly axeman as he charged at Aphelios. 

_Infernum!_

The moonstone flamethrower materialized in Aphelios’ grasp. The sudden weight of the weapon momentarily surprised him, but he adjusted by wielding the piece of artillery with both hands to blast a cone of indigo fire through the melee fighter’s face. The fighter tried to block the flames by pulling his arm over his face, but he moved too slowly. The streak of flames seared his face, leaving the flesh burnt, bloody, and raw before dissipating into blue wisps.

Several other Solari charged as the axeman stumbled backwards, yelping in pain at the burn and screaming that he couldn’t see. It wouldn’t be fatal, but the Infernum’s scorch would leave anyone incapacitated for a good period of time and likely to suffer some sort of permanent damage. In fact, Alune had suggested a few times that Aphelios wear some sort of helmet or facial gear in order to shield himself from the potential harm of his own weapons, especially that of Infernum in case the flames went wayward. Aphelios disagreed, believing that a helmet would limit his vision. His compromise was to wear fire-proof gloves imbued with magic resistance. That way, he could shield his face without burning the flesh off his hands.

Aphelios angled Infernum towards the other incoming warriors, blasting at least five others with direct hits to their upper bodies. The shots were slow; it was lucky for him that the Solari’s charge was uncoordinated. If they all came towards him at once, the fight would have been won in their favor almost immediately. Aphelios had to turn his entire body with each attack, in order to aim the weapon in the right direction and evenly spread the heavy recoil throughout his body. He could tell that the noctum’s essence was wearing off, since his arms felt sore from the sheer mass of holding the flamethrower.

“Hyaaaaarggghh!”

A shrill battle-cry came from Aphelios’ left side. He swiftly turned his head to see the young swordswoman from earlier, Fotiá, dashing towards him with a blade being swung towards his hip. Too slow to blast her with Infernum, Aphelios instead sidestepped the swing and released his left hand from the weapon to elbow her in the jaw. As she staggered, Aphelios took his window of opportunity to lug Infernum at her head like a heavy rock. 

The contact with the flamethrower sent Fotiá flying back a few feet. When she landed on the ground, her head was twisted from the rest of her body at an unnatural angle. Infernum disintegrated, as all of Aphelios’ moonstone weapons did when no longer in his own hands, but not before releasing a wild fire that spread from Fotiá’s lifeless corpse. One of the magical properties of Infernum’s flames was that it was much more conducive to growing than a normal fire. Within seconds, the clearing was ablaze with its characteristic azure-colored flames. They would die down on their own, but it would take an hour or two first.

Aphelios could hardly react to the young girl’s gruesome death before two other Solari charged at him with spears. He was pushed to the ground by one of the spearman’s shields, and then rolled to the side to narrowly avoid the thrust of the other’s lance. Its tip glowed with molten lava and grazed Aphelios’ shoulderguard, leaving it sizzling.

_Severum!_

Aphelios raised his hand, feeling the scythe pistol pass through the celestial veil into the physical realm. He grabbed ahold of the weapon just in time as the spearmen came within ideal distance. When he fought with Severum, it was like fighting with a weaponized extension of his own arm. Aphelios slashed at both spearmen’s throats in a crescent arc, feeling energy coming back to him as the pistol’s additional hemomancy effects took place. Aphelios got back up to his feet while the two Solari keeled over, blood spilling and bubbling from their necks. One of them collapsed, while the other was able to stand back up. He tried to speak—perhaps to plead for his life—but could not let anything more than a gurgle out from his mouth. He was clearly trying to use the last moments of his life to force words out rather than fight with the spear he still held in his hand. Aphelios silenced him with another swipe, decapitating the Solari in one clean slice. 

_You don’t take kindly to those who speak when they fight, do you?_

Actions spoke louder than words. That much, Aphelios knew. The noctum’s essence essentially rendered him mute while it was in effect, but he had never found himself in a situation during a fight where he had to talk. If the soldier wanted his life, then he should never have stopped fighting.

 _I hope I never find myself on your wrong side, brother_.

Aphelios snorted. This wasn’t the time for her to comment on his style of combat. In any case, he knew that if Alune were to take up the moonstone weapons herself, she would be just as ruthless of a killer. While their personalities diverged some, they converged wholly on their indomitability towards whatever they set their minds on. If they were going to take this skirmish, then they were going to win.

Aphelios wanted to count the bodies on the ground to see how many enemies were still remaining, but the ongoing fire clouded his view. It had absorbed the campfire, and a thick smog was filling the air as well. _Five or six left_. He trusted that Alune was keeping accurate track, but he was regretting his usage of Infernum as an area-of-effect attack. The resulting limited visibility could easily backfire. 

Sure enough, several daggers came flying at him simultaneously out of the smoke. Aphelios slashed them away with Severum, but he felt a jab at the back of his thigh. One dagger he hadn’t spotted had found its target—he saw the tip of sun-forged steel poking out from the front side of his leg. It had been lodged all the way. He would have to wait to take it out to minimize the bleeding for now. The pain was barely felt thanks to the noctum’s essence, although he knew it was only delaying the inevitable before its effects wore off. 

Who was throwing the daggers? Aphelios darted his eyes from side to side, watching for any movements. He raised Severum preemptively, ready to destroy any more projectiles that came his way. 

But what he didn’t expect was for someone to blink behind him and kick him to the ground. His face grazed the dirt, but luckily did not touch the flames licking towards him only a few inches away. He turned to unleash a flurry of slashes at his assailant, but she disappeared and reappeared next to one of the broken daggers to his side. Aphelios recognized her abilities; they were common amongst Noxian assassins. He didn’t expect the group of Solari to have such a person in their ranks. Perhaps the Solari had copied various sorts of Noxian techniques just as they did their imperialistic ambition.

“Iméra! You’ve got him?” asked one of the soldiers as he ran up, holding the mercurial scimitar. Aphelios gritted his teeth. 

_We need that weapon!_

Alune didn’t need to tell him that. Aphelios agreed; he had to get his hands on that weapon. It was the main reason why he was even fighting.

Aphelios tried to stand up, but he felt something holding him down. A blast of solar magic left a circular indentation in the ground around him. Aphelios was locked in place, barely able to move. He spotted the mage boy from earlier, staring in concentration to hold the spell. So he _was_ able to cast a solar flare after all. But it was slightly off-center; Aphelios was able to move the left side of his body. He could not attack with Severum, which he held with his right hand, but...

_Crescendum!_

Aphelios launched the white chakram that appeared in his left hand. It went spinning away into the fire. The woman with the daggers, Iméra, raised an eyebrow and let out a faint chuckle. 

“Who are you even throwing that towards?” she taunted, coming closer. “I’m right here.”

The man with the scimitar came closer. “Let’s finish you off, heretic scum. With the weapon of your own people.” He gripped the hilt of the moonstone weapon with both hands, driving it down to Aphelios’ chest.

The solar magic pinning Aphelios down to the ground was dispelled just as planned. He parried the strike of the scimitar with Severum’s arc-shaped beam. He heard Iméra shriek, likely in reaction to seeing where—or rather, who—Aphelios had thrown Crescendum towards. The spell binding Aphelios had ceased because Crescendum had flown right through the Solari mage’s chest, killing him instantly by ripping through his heart. Then, it boomeranged towards Aphelios, penetrating through the scimitar wielder’s armor. Aphelios seized Crescendum and tore it out of the man’s stomach, blood and guts spilling indiscriminately. 

Aphelios got up unsteadily, forcing his weight on his right leg as he felt the stab wound in his left thigh start to flare up in increasingly worse levels of pain. The healing that attacks with Severum provided wouldn’t be potent enough to sustain him. Alune dematerialized the scythe pistol, preparing the next moonstone weapon in the lineup. He had to end this fight quickly, but he was also unsure if he could even kill the assassin himself. 

Iméra, with an expression halfway between upset and disgust, was aiming more daggers at him. Aphelios saw two other Solari encroaching on him. _These may be the last ones standing, but it is still three against one. And in your state, Aphelios, you have to retreat_.

This time, Aphelios decided to heed his sister’s words. He threw Crescendum into the flames to distract and zone off the Solari, who watched it warily to avoid its line of attack. 

_Gravitum!_

Aphelios summoned the gravity cannon, charging up a sphere of violet energy. One of the Solari yelled for the other two to look out as Aphelios fired off a shock blast towards the trio. It was too little, too late as they were perfectly aligned to absorb the effects of the attack at full force. While Gravitum was one of the less deadly moonstone weapons, it had its niche purposes. Each shot with Gravitum weighed down its target with dark orbs, making movements extremely slow and sluggish. Aphelios could see Iméra try to channel herself towards a dagger, but Gravitum’s effects kept her rooted to the ground.

Now was his chance to escape. Aphelios let go of Gravitum and inspected his wounds. He looked down at the dagger lodged in his leg, carefully exerting pressure with one hand before pulling the weapon out with the other. Blood gushed out intensely. Alune cast a spell to reseal the wound temporarily, but it wouldn’t hold for long. Aphelios had to make his way back quickly.

He picked up the scimitar and limped off. It was partly bloodstained and caked in mud and dirt, but still possessed the potent glow of moonstone. Alune directed him through the blue fires towards the side of the forest that would take him back home. Both of them inspected the new weapon in his hands, wondering where it came from.

_It was recently blessed. We know this is not a weapon that came from Stella Lagos, either._

Aphelios tracked through the forest, barely looking where he was going. All too familiar with the geography of Old Targon, he navigated the forest based purely off muscle memory and Alune’s subtle guidance. 

All of his attention was focused on the artifact. Indeed, the weapon was unlike the arsenal that Alune looked after in her fortress beyond the celestial veil. Calibrum, Severum, Gravitum, Infernum, and Crescendum were five sacred armaments created 200 years ago during a lunar convergence, not unlike the one that coincided with his and Alune’s own birth twenty years ago. They were ethereal weapons bound to the spirit realm, and they could only temporarily exist in the physical realm while Alune was mentally connected to Aphelios thanks to the noctum’s essence.

However, the scimitar was fully bound to this realm; it was getting heavier in his hands, and Alune could not simply transport it back to where she was. Aphelios looked down and saw the whole of his left thigh drenched in blood. The wound had already re-opened. It was likely that the dagger had magical properties to hamper the effects of any healing spells; it could even have been poisoned. While he was usually not alarmed at his injuries, Alune’s worry trickled into his own. _You have to stymie the bleeding now._

Aphelios hesitated for a moment before he took the stole he wore around his neck and fashioned it into a tourniquet. Few things were precious to him, but this was one of the only keepsakes he still had of his mother. She had died shortly after giving birth to him and Alune, leaving the twins with no other known family. He had no idea who his father was, and he would be lying if he didn’t admit that he was curious. Alune, on the other hand, was perfectly content with leaving that part of their heritage undiscovered. _He abandoned our mother. He never came to look for us. He is not relevant to our lives,_ she would say. 

Aphelios understood her lack of concern, but didn’t agree with it. At all times, Alune only ever held a single motivation to drive her decision-making process: would it benefit the Lunari?

_That’s because I have our best interests at heart, brother._

Aphelios could feel his steps growing heavier. The effects of the noctum’s essence were close to expiring, and he felt nearly the full extent of pain in his thigh. It was close to becoming unbearable. His head throbbed; his own thoughts were becoming dull. All of his limbs moved sluggishly. Indeed, the dagger had been poisoned. The toxins were already spreading to other parts of his body. At most, he would only be able to make it out a mile or two further. Maybe a little more, if he took another dose of the noctum’s essence…

_No! It would only kill you faster if you take it now. Let’s..let’s try something else. Head to the Fengári Temple. There, the barrier between your realm and mine is weaker, and I should be able to cast stronger healing magic. It’s less than a mile away. Just follow my thoughts._

The Fengári Temple? Now that was a place Aphelios had not heard the name of in some time. It was abandoned two years ago, having been one of the first sites of Lunari massacre by the Solari. Aphelios didn’t personally believe in the rumors that the temple and its surrounding area was haunted, but he knew that it could be dangerous. The Solari surely had sentry wards set up around known Lunari sites to tip them off of anyone who ventured close by. 

_We don’t have a choice_. Aphelios agreed, trying to take his mind off the pain as he allowed Alune to direct him onto a new path within the forest. This wasn’t the first time that he suffered a dire injury while on a mission. Aphelios wasn’t too anxious about his chances of survival, but he briefly wondered how toxic the dagger’s poison was. If it came down to it, he might have to self-amputate. Would it be easiest with Severum? Or perhaps, he wondered while looking back down at the scimitar…

 _That’s rather sacrilegious._ Aphelios scoffed. At the end of the night, it was still just a weapon. Even if it was, as he suspected, a weapon blessed by the Aspect of the Moon, it held little significance to him. What was the Aspect to him? The stellar being had found a new human host in recent years, but it had done nothing to help him or the Lunari clan at large. While the Aspect of the Sun, whose host was Leona, actively worked to serve the Solari, its counterpart was...nowhere to be found. 

In fact, if Aphelios were to believe what the Solari said, the human host of the Moon’s Aspect was a woman by the name of Diana, who was raised under the Solari faith. Even if she had gone astray from the faith since her enlightenment, she had never extended a helping hand to the Lunari. As far as Aphelios was concerned, she had essentially turned a blind eye towards the genocide of the people that she was supposed to protect. How could he accept such a being as someone to revere?

 _Aphelios..._ He could hear Alune’s panicked breaths, coming in short and labored. They distracted him from his thoughts, as they were desynchronized from his own steady breathing. _We’re almost there. But I have to be honest, I’m afraid._

Why was that?

_I sense the Solari from before. They are near. And the temple...it is not empty. Someone is there._

Aphelios echoed the same words that Alune had uttered earlier: they didn’t have a choice. He exited the forest, and the Fengári Temple was within his sight. Weeds grew between the materials of the structure, as they did in the general vicinity. Nobody was taking care of the land around here; it had all been entrusted to nature’s devices. Fireflies glowed and zoomed around in circles. If Aphelios didn’t so clearly remember the mass slaughter as if it had just occurred yesterday, it might have been a pleasant sight.

But what caught Aphelios’ eye was the fact that the temple was alight. From the windows, he could see faint candlelight. Who would be there? And why?

Alune was nervous. Aphelios could tell she had the arsenal of moonstone weapons ready, prepared to push into his hands at any moment’s notice to engage in a fight again. But Aphelios was too weak for that. He had to make it inside, but he felt his body give way. He collapsed in the tall grass and dropped the scimitar with a loud _clang_.

_Aphelios!_

Aphelios couldn’t find the energy to get back up. Instead, he gazed up blankly at the dark sky. Why did it have to be a waning crescent? If he was going to die, he wished he could at least see the Moon in its full beauty.

 _Creak._ The door to the temple opened, and the occupant walked out. Aphelios heard the rhythmic cadence of the person’s boots softly clicking on the ground in a rather deliberate pattern: the fourth step was always louder. 

He felt Alune trying to speak to the person as they approached Aphelios’ body, but it was futile. Only he could hear her, and she knew that as well. She was rarely ever irrational, but when it came down to it, pressure always cracked her. Her greatest fear was being helpless, and it was displayed in full force now.

A masked man—at least, Aphelios assumed the individual was male—crouched down over Aphelios, peering at him curiously with one red eye. Aphelios could see under the white plaster mask that the man wore yet another mask underneath, a black, skintight covering that did not show the other eye. This man surely wasn’t Lunari from the way he was dressed, but nor did he appear to be Solari.

“Who are you?” the man asked, his voice low and sonorous. His Targonian was accented. That, combined with the strange clothes he wore, confirmed Aphelios’ suspicions that this man wasn’t from the region. But what was he doing here? Tourists passing through Shurima to Targon only ever sought to climb the famed Mount Targon. They had no business venturing so far north.

Aphelios felt like his voice was coming back to him, but he could not answer. He could hear Alune trying to get him to say something, say anything. _Mouth something to him!_ But Aphelios’ brown eyes continued to stare into the man’s red as silence filled the air. Could Aphelios even trust him with a name? Perhaps the man was a spy for the Solari. No—if he were, then surely he could already have identified Aphelios as Lunari just from his facial tattoos and what he was wearing. 

“A quiet little rabbit, aren’t you?” he drawled. “No matter. It is always better when they stay silent.”

He picked Aphelios up from the ground, carrying him towards the temple. Right— that’s where he needed to be. Where Alune would be more powerful. Aphelios’ eyes were half-lidded, threatening to close. It had been a long night in Old Targon.

The plaster mask had a smirk carved into it, but Aphelios could hear the smile in the man’s voice. Before Aphelios passed out, he heard the man whisper good night with a rare type of joy, the unadulterated kind as if he had found something he had long been searching for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of this chapter is just setting set-up and worldbuilding. There's going to be a lot more throughout the following chapters. Trying my best to make this just fill in the blanks of canon lore though!
> 
> Next chapter should be up on Halloween :)


	2. Captive Audience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Undesired intruders crash Jhin's performance.

Darkness. It provided Aphelios comfort. There was nothing more calming than a long night, and Aphelios always looked forward to the end of summer with the advent of shorter days. Waking up in the middle of the night within the walls of a familiar temple and just enough candlelight to appraise his surroundings, Aphelios should’ve felt at ease. It would’ve been the perfect setting for Aphelios to meditate or make a quick prayer before starting the day. Under any other circumstance, of course.

In other words, not the one where he was in chains and on his knees, alone in the temple with a masked man who was brandishing a gun. Aphelios had been stripped down to a plain tunic, and his arms were raised above his head, each shackled to a pillar on opposite sides of the hall. He also felt bonds on his ankles, although he couldn’t turn his head to look behind and see. Aphelios tried to pull on the shackles, but to no avail. There was no way he could break apart the metal links.

The cacophony arising from Aphelios’ struggle against his restraints drew the masked man’s attention. He had been crouching down, placing strange contraptions on the floor. They were curious little decorations that looked like lily pads, but shined with the glint of steel. The man paused and turned his head towards Aphelios. 

“Hush,” he said, putting a finger to the lips engraved on his mask. “The flowers are blooming. Just a minute and I’ll address you.”

Aphelios gritted his teeth. What kind of response was that? He continued to try and move his arms around to bang the metal links against the pillars, if only to irritate the man and distract him from his activities.

The masked man began to hum. Vexed at this peculiar behavior, Aphelios attempted to drown out the sound by smashing the chains on the pillars with heightened ferocity. The man reciprocated by humming louder, in rhythm with the racket Aphelios was making.

He was being toyed with. Aphelios had a feeling that the man was half as bothered by the noise than he was himself. Aphelios let his arms hang still, relenting on the chains. In conjunction, the man fell silent. Aphelios couldn’t keep up his act of defiance for much longer anyway; it took away much of his strength, and it didn’t help that he had a throbbing headache. His brain felt like it was swimming in a thick smog. The lack of bloodflow was also starting to make his arms lose feeling. 

Numbness. Now that Aphelios thought about it, he felt the same lack of sensation in his left leg. He looked down to see that a large square section of his pants had been cut off, exposing bare skin. A long stitch ran along his thigh, with a few tiny spots of fresh blood at the threaded intersections. The chains kept Aphelios from fully inspecting the wound, but he could see the hints of a similar stitch on the back of his thigh as well. The overpowering smell of antiseptics drove Aphelios to turn his head away.

A hint of teal caught his eye. Aphelios spotted his robe and bloodied stole folded in a neat pile on the floor a good distance away from the man and his odd contraptions. Next to his clothes was a beautiful moonstone sword, its blade shaped like a lunar arc. As Aphelios stared at the weapon, utterly entranced, he could’ve sworn it glowed even brighter. He could’ve imagined it, but his headache seemed to wane ever so slightly as he gaped.

The sound of shuffled movement broke Aphelios out of his stupor. The masked man had risen to his feet.

Again, Aphelios could sense that the smile carved into his mask was true as the man strode over. His gait was pronounced, with every step deliberate. He always put more weight into the fourth step. Aphelios was already getting sick of the way the man walked. His head hurt with a dull throb that matched with the tempo of the man’s steps. Did he  _ have _ to move with such obnoxious self-importance?

Aphelios flickered his gaze to observe more of his surroundings while the man drew closer. He noticed that candles were strewn about in an odd pattern, leaving one side of the temple brighter than the other. Aphelios scrutinized the ground where the man had been placing the strange objects. All he could see left of them were small pieces of sharp metal poking out from under the floor. Had they been buried?

As the man came face-to-face, he put away his gun. As Aphelios looked down at the holster the man wore on his waist, he registered that they weren’t on level ground. He realized that he was chained to some sort of platform. In horror, Aphelios registered that he was on the altar. 

Aphelios hadn’t immediately remembered what had transpired before he woke up, but it was coming back to him. He had been injured, found his way to this abandoned temple, and then collapsed. This lunatic—he didn’t like the term as it was used derogatorily by some towards the Lunari, but he could think of no other word at the moment—then chained him up while he was unconscious. The gravity of the situation had dawned upon Aphelios. What was this madman going to do to him? 

The question must’ve been written all over his face, because the man answered: “I am creating  _ art _ .”

It wasn’t a good answer, but it was an answer regardless. Aphelios should’ve known that the man wouldn’t speak plainly. He generally didn’t like cryptic conversation. Alune sometimes spoke in an abstruse manner, but he knew her well enough that he could always decipher what she meant.

Alune.

Aphelios felt a pang in his heart. He couldn’t hear her thoughts. He wasn’t sure why his mind felt so clouded, but it didn’t help that Alune’s presence was nowhere to be felt. The noctum’s essence effects must have worn off completely. Before, the serum would make trivial the fact that she resided in a realm completely different from his own. They were rarely separated. 

For the better of two years since she entered the spirit realm, even when he wasn’t on an active mission, Aphelios would ingest just enough of the noctum’s essence so that their connection held. The only times his body was free of the substance was when he visited Marus Omegnum, the Lunari temple hidden within the depths of Mount Targon. It was one of the only places in Runeterra where the barrier between the mortal and spirit realm was something trivial. There, he could communicate through the celestial veil and even see a specter of his sister talking back to him.

Aphelios knew that his sister had likely been trying to reach out to him all this time. Almost as much as he felt lonely, he felt guilty of the worry that he must have been causing her. Did she think he was dead? Could she be grieving?

“How are you feeling?”

The question surprised Aphelios, temporarily interrupting his thoughts. Somehow, the question sounded embedded with genuine concern. Aphelios hadn’t noticed it, but his eyes had been watering up. He blinked, and a tear rolled down his cheek. 

“I sealed your wounds. The numbing agents should still be in effect. You should be feeling very little pain.” There was a tinge of confusion in the man’s voice.

At the moment, it didn’t even cross Aphelios’ mind to question why the man had treated and disinfected the deadly wound on his thigh, as well as all of the smaller cuts and scrapes he had sustained during the skirmish. It was true that aside from a growing headache, he otherwise felt fine. Well, numb. It wasn’t unlike the desensitization that the noctum’s essence subjected him to. Aphelios was reluctant to admit it, but this man had saved his life.

Regardless, the feeling of emptiness stung harder than any physical wound could. The masked man wouldn’t know about Alune, so his bewilderment was understandable. Aphelios didn’t know if souls could truly be hurt, but he felt like his had been torn asunder. He had taken for granted what Alune was to him all this time. While he was ultimately responsible for executing the missions the Lunari Council gave him, Alune had sacrificed far greater in order to set him up for success. She had given up her corporeal form in order to unlock celestial power that she used entirely on his behalf. There would be no hitman without the seer. 

Without Alune, Aphelios did not feel whole. He was missing his better half.

“Tell me why you are crying. Are you afraid?”

Aphelios did not answer. He could have, since he didn’t feel the usual constriction of his vocal chords that came as a side effect of the noctum’s essence. But why was this person so keen to know about his feelings?

In any case, while fear was certainly one section of the labyrinth of emotions swimming within, Aphelios was more whelmed by woe and ire. 

As Aphelios mulled over the man’s question, he felt his fury rise. The lunatic had the audacity to chain him in a coarse and humiliating display within a sacred place, and then act as if he had somehow been hospitable. The fact that his wounds had been treated meant very little in the context of the whole situation.

“You don’t want to talk about your feelings, I’ll respect that. How about a name?”

Aphelios narrowed his eyes. If the man wanted to talk respect, then he shouldn’t have put him in restraints. 

“Or where you’re from, perhaps?”

What? Aphelios scrunched up his face. He was born and raised in Targon. He dressed Lunari and even had the tell-tale tattoos to boot all over his body, even right there on his face. He knew the man had to be foreign, but was he that ignorant of the region? Did he even know where he was?

“You’ve only known Targon then, haven’t you?”

Was he supposed to know any more? Aphelios had only ever desired to be within his own homeland, the realm of his faith. He wasn’t sure what the man was getting at. Even if he were more responsive, he had no idea what exactly the man was hoping to gain from his answers.

“When I said that I prefer silence, I was only referring to the beginning of the performance.” The man’s voice hardened. “Two to tango, you know.”

Aphelios raised an eyebrow. Now he had even more reason to stay quiet. He wasn’t going to acquiesce to the man by answering him. It was clear that he was curious about Aphelios, and he wanted to learn more about him. At this point, Aphelios wasn’t sure what the madman wanted to do with him, but he refused to play along.

The man’s red eye lingered on Aphelios’ face. Aphelios glared back with as much disgust as he could muster, to make him understand that he was weaponizing his silence. That he would be resisting.

“If you don’t speak up now, then I’ll kill you.” The words were clipped, the tone flat. Was the man bored?

Aphelios tried to run through escape possibilities in his head, but if he had to be honest, he didn’t see a way out. It didn’t help that his brain felt too weighed down by the haze in his mind to properly simulate anything. Even if Alune were with him, there was no way he could wield any of the moonstone weapons while still in chains. He doubted that Alune could break them with magic, either. Aphelios sensed a spell—one of rather unfamiliar origins, but a strong spell nonetheless—fortifying the chains. 

If Aphelios were to die here, then he may as well make it as unsatisfying as possible for his captor. It seemed like the whole situation was supposed to provide some form of personal entertainment, and Aphelios was emphatic on the settlement that he would make this encounter leave a bitter taste. 

An acrid taste. Aphelios spit on the man, aiming for his eye. He was off his mark, but it still landed on the mask.

Silence. The man did not move for a solid minute. Then, in delayed fashion he slowly raised his hand to his mask. Aphelios wondered if he would be enraged. He watched apprehensively, waiting for the man to do  _ something _ in reaction. Perhaps draw his gun and put a bullet in him right then and there. It wouldn’t shock him. Aphelios didn’t think he would be in for any more surprises at that point, but he was wrong.

Because the man  _ laughed _ . He wiped the spit off nonchalantly with his bare hand.

“Pardon. It was a test. If that’s all it would take, then I would have been...so disappointed.” 

Pause. 

The man came closer, his face barely a few inches from Aphelios’. Aphelios couldn’t help but cower as far back as the chains would allow him to. He was glad that it wasn’t bright enough to see himself reflected in the man’s eye—he didn’t want to know how vulnerable he looked.

Aphelios could still see more detail than he wanted to on the man’s mask. It was generic enough that he was sure the man probably had a dozen other similar masks he carved for himself. Somehow, that fact made its smile more frightening as it forced Aphelios to reckon with the context at hand, demanding an interpretation. 

The smile on the mask seemed to be one of triumph, like a predator who had cornered his prey. It was over. There was nothing Aphelios could do to gain a mental edge over his captor. Without the noctum’s essence or Alune to give him his presence of mind, he had been doomed from the start. 

“Very soon, I will hear your voice. Your scream. Your laugh. Your whisper.  _ All _ of you.” The man leaned in further. He reached out with a mechanically gloved hand, brushing aside the part of Aphelios’ hair that was covering his left eye.

Aphelios shivered as the cool metal made contact with his skin, and he shut his eyes tight, having no desire to look the madman in the eye at all. He could hear heavy breathing, and in the moment he felt grateful that the mask stopped him from actually feeling the exhalations on his skin. Still, that was but one small boon amidst the terror that took over Aphelios’ mind. His mouth trembled. He felt the temptation to scream or yell for help. He almost let out a whimper, but managed to hold it in. He detested how utterly pathetic he felt. Never in his wildest imagination would he have envisaged rotting away in an abandoned-temple-turned-dungeon in the aftermath of battle. He wished that he had instead died in the earlier skirmish, fighting in the name of his faith.

The man clicked his tongue, and Aphelios dared to open his eyes as he felt the man’s hand withdraw. He had backed off. The pain in his head compounded, and his heart was beating so loudly that he was sure the man could still hear it as he walked away, the palpitations feeling like the organ would simply burst into pieces. Aphelios hoped that it would, in order to quickly put him out of his misery.

“It looks like we have an audience,” the lunatic sighed as he walked towards the entrance of the temple. “I don’t like it when they see my work before it is done.”

Aphelios felt overwhelming relief as there was finally distance placed between them, but nervous uncertainty still filled his mind. An audience? Visitors? To the abandoned temple? Aphelios doubted that any Lunari would be making a pilgrimage here. No, it had to be…

The stitches on his leg felt like they burned as Aphelios recognized the intruders who burst into the temple, knocking the door wide open. There were three, and the woman in the center was all too familiar. It was Iméra, the assassin with the poison-coated daggers. She was accompanied by the two other Solari that Aphelios recalled rooting with Gravitum before his retreat. As they entered the temple, Aphelios could see momentary shock displayed on each of their faces upon seeing the Lunari in restraints upon the altar.

Splendid. Now there were four people he hated in one place. Aphelios did not think the night could get any worse. He knew that his failure to dispatch the entire group would come back to haunt him.

Iméra walked forward, darting her gaze from Aphelios to the masked man. “Who are you?” she demanded. “And what is your business with the heretic?”

The man tsk-ed. “Now, let’s take a step back.  _ You _ are interrupting  _ me _ . Who are  _ you? _ ”

His tone was comparable with that of a parent chastising a child. To Aphelios it felt out of place, considering that the Solari had essentially just caught him red-handed in the middle of a highly questionable deed. Chaining a stranger down wasn’t exactly a reasonable thing to do in any culture.

Iméra scowled. Aphelios thought she would continue to avoid giving a reply first, but to his surprise—and apparently to the astonishment of the other Solari as well— she answered. Aphelios got the sense that she would normally argue back. It was entirely possible that she was too jaded to try; her hair was disheveled and her clothes were stained with mud and soot. By all means, it wasn’t difficult to guess that she had spent the whole night searching for Aphelios.

“We are Solari. You don’t seem to be from around here, so again I ask, who are you and what is your purpose here?”

Aphelios could see the two Solari behind her draw their weapons cautiously. They both looked equally haggard as Iméra. One wielded a crossbow, and the other an amplifying tome. After underestimating the mage who had managed to cast a solar flare in the dead of night, Aphelios felt particularly wary of any Solari magic users. Aphelios half-expected the masked man to be reaching for the gun in his holster, but he did no such thing.

“I am an artist, doing things that artists do.” His tone was blasé, as if he had already repeated himself countless times.

A simple, direct, yet infuriatingly empty answer. Aphelios wondered if silence would’ve proven more telling. He wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that he enjoyed the exasperation that the Solari expressed. At least they, too, found his pretension rather disagreeable. Iméra pointed a dagger towards the man, who did not even flinch.

“You’re probably under contract and can’t tell anybody about the details, I get it,” she snapped impatiently. “But how much is your employer offering you? We can probably go higher.”

So she thought the man was a contracted killer. Aphelios could see the air of an assassin-for-hire about the man, but he certainly wasn’t here to execute a hit. He had no idea what the man was planning in store for him, but if it was to fulfill a contract, then this man had to be one of the worst people to hire on Runeterra. No, he fully believed the man when he called himself an “artist.” It was one of those things that was so absurd to admit aloud that it was probably true.

Iméra seemed to have her doubts. She shook her head and even rummaged through a bag that was strapped to her leg, showing a few gold coins. Aphelios saw her mouth something, and the other two Solari chimed in as well, but Aphelios couldn’t quite put the words together. It felt like the conversation was oscillating in volume. He heard some key words echoing in the temple, but nothing was fully making sense. Was he losing his hearing? Aphelios didn’t understand. The more he attempted to concentrate, the more he aggravated his headache.

“...just name a price in gold, or it will be blood you pay instead,” Aphelios finally managed to hear as Iméra pushed past the masked man to come closer towards the altar. 

The two Solari followed her. Aphelios saw Iméra whisper something to the mage, who nodded and began casting a spell in Aphelios’ direction. Aphelios shirked, suppressing the urge to summon a moonstone weapon that would not come. Which one would he even want in this scenario…? It was too difficult for him to pull any cohesive thoughts together about it at the moment. All he knew was that if Alune were with him, everything would be different. His adversaries would be dead, and he would be long gone from the temple, perhaps even enjoying a peaceful sleep in bed at the moment.

“You’ve asked the wrong artist to put a price tag on his work,” the masked man said as he shadowed Iméra’s footsteps. “Mine is priceless.”

Iméra ignored him and looked back at the mage, who closed his tome with a  _ thud  _ and snapped his fingers. Aphelios nearly yelped as his arms fell from the air, no longer suspended, and his head planted face-first onto the white marble of the altar. The restraints on his wrists and ankles had broken off. Aphelios slowly raised his head to see blood where he had smashed his face into the stone.

“Let’s take him and go.”

“Not one step farther.”

Iméra and the masked man spoke at exactly the same time. It took Aphelios a few moments to register what they had said. His head was spinning, and his ears were ringing. A few drops of blood continued to drip onto the altar as he readjusted his position. Was this his chance for freedom? Clearly the Solari had not taken his bonds off to let him go, but if the masked man could distract them—

No. His thoughts were processing too slowly. Iméra and the two Solari were coming towards him, ignoring the masked man’s warning. Aphelios turned his head to see what was behind him: nothing besides a solid, immovable wall. Of course he was trapped with nowhere to go. What did he expect, a passageway?

Aphelios realized that he had two choices in front of him: death at the hands of the Solari, or...never mind. He couldn’t quantify what the alternative would be. Perhaps a fate worse than death.

However, the choice seemed to be made for him, as the next minute was a complete flurry of action. A bloodcurdling scream rang out as the Solari mage stopped in his tracks mid-movement, dropping his tome to the ground. Aphelios looked over to see that one of his legs was partially encased in metal. No— encased was too demure of a way to describe it. There had to be a dozen blades sprung from the ground underneath the Solari’s foot that curved upwards and converged into the flesh of his calf. 

The mage struggled to move, but his foot was stuck on the spot the blades came from. Aphelios gasped with a sick realization that he had stepped onto one of the devices the masked man had buried deep into the ground earlier. The man darted his gaze in surprise towards Aphelios for a moment upon hearing the sound, as insignificant as it was, but the Lunari hardly noticed. Aphelios was morbidly rapt at the revelation that those lily pad-like objects were traps. The activation was deadly; petal-like blades contracted as if the flower was closing up. The trap must have been firmly rooted down under, because no amount of force the mage exerted seemed to be able to raise his leg up.

“No!”

The shout from Iméra came a split second before the mage kicked at the root of the blades with his other foot. It was too late— the word didn’t register to him in time. The flower trap contracted further in response. Its blades sunk in an inch deeper, then even deeper, and the leg was completely severed off at the calf. The mage displayed a brief expression of relief and wonder as his thigh moved away from the trap, before realizing that the bottom half of his leg was still standing upright, stuck to the ground.

He keeled over, unable to balance on one leg. His mouth was slightly agape, but the Solari didn’t scream again. Aphelios recognized the reaction as shock. His eyes were glassy, and he hardly blinked. Various parts of his body occasionally twitched. The mage merely ogled his own leg. If Aphelios didn’t know what he was looking at, he would’ve described the man’s expression as one of mesmerization.

The Solari with the crossbow lowered his weapon and rushed over to his fallen comrade, but he roared in pain as he was forced to stop; he had stepped onto a trap as well. He steeled himself and remained still, careful not to trigger the blades to extend further and slice through the entrapped leg completely. Very slowly, he raised his crossbow again, aiming it at the masked man. He shot one arrow that narrowly missed the man’s shoulder.

“A warning shot. Disable these traps or I will put an enchanted arrow straight through your rotten heart,” he snarled, his voice rumbling with rage. Aphelios found that any intended effect of intimidation was betrayed by the fact that the Solari’s upper body was shaking as he spoke.

Iméra looked back and forth between the arbalist and the masked man in concern. She had not moved from her spot since the activation of the first trap. Her fingers were twiddling a dagger on her waist. 

Surprisingly, the masked man acknowledged the threat. “If I disable the traps, then will your kind turn back and leave us be?”

_ Us?  _ Aphelios wasn’t sure if he heard that correctly. His stomach turned with a jumble of confusion and revulsion. He hadn’t thought the man necessarily wanted to kill him, but upon seeing the purpose behind the metal contraptions, he was almost certain that he would suffer a terrible fate if he were left alone with this...he hesitated to even call him human. 

A red-eyed demon, perhaps. Aphelios didn’t believe in such creatures, but he wondered if demons did exist and were simply not native to Targon. He had killed aplenty in the two years since he first took up the moonstone arsenal, but never did he try to toy with his victims. Aphelios found no pleasure in inflicting pain. He always sought to execute his enemies swiftly. To him, death was simply the most efficient means to an end. The concept of the flower traps, of trying to make  _ art  _ out of something so senseless and inevitable, felt alien to him. 

Aphelios shuddered, squeezing his eyes closed for a moment. He didn’t think he would feel disgust so viscerally in his mind, but nausea was taking hold. He tried to even his breathing so he didn’t vomit right then and there.

He heard a woman chuckle, and fleetingly he thought he had mistaken the noise for something else. 

“Leave ‘us’ alone?” Iméra said, sounding like she wanted to hold back a laugh. “There’s no world in which we would do such a thing.”

Aphelios was perturbed. How could anyone find humor in the current situation? He had an ominous feeling. Would the waning crescent’s misfortune not relent for a single second until sunrise came?

“What would you do with him?” asked the masked man.

The cloud in his mind was worsening. Aphelios felt like his vision was blurring. Surely this had to be more than just a reaction to the dismemberment he had just witnessed. It was a sight that made him wince, but he was desensitized to scenes of violence and gore. Aphelios felt like he had seen worse. No, he  _ knew  _ he had seen worse, perhaps even done worse to his enemies. While he didn’t actively try to prolong any suffering, he didn’t want to pretend that his philosophy would absolve him of the fact that he was, at the end of the night, a cold-blooded killer.

Aphelios could no longer concentrate on the conversation that the two standing Solari and the masked man were having. He tried to shift his body and move himself off the altar. Could he perhaps make a run for it? They were distracted, and he trusted his memory to inform him of where the remaining traps were placed. It wouldn’t be too terribly difficult to step around them. This would be his only opportunity; the chains had been broken. What was he waiting for? Freedom was just outside the temple. He would be able to get back home. He could talk to Alune again.

But just as he was about to launch his last-ditch effort to escape by springing from the altar and making a run for it, a glow caught his eye. He had completely forgotten about the mercurial scimitar, which sat next to his bloodied clothes. It would take a few additional seconds for him to make the detour around the temple to pick it up. While Aphelios felt bereaved to leave his mother’s stole behind, it would be a sacrifice he was willing to make to get out as quickly as possible.

The scimitar was different. Aphelios had just killed nearly a dozen people for it, sustained near mortal wounds, gone through arduous psychological torment, and he wanted something to show for it. The weapon would surely be the key to finding the woman who hosted the Aspect of the Moon, a figure that the Lunari Council yearned to meet. While Aphelios had his resentments towards the Aspect’s inaction, allowing the Solari to displace his people to form New Targon, he believed there had to be a justification for it. If only the Lunari could just get a chance to connect with her, there could be a chance for the status quo to change. He couldn’t give up on that possibility by letting the weapon fall into the enemy’s hands. 

Aphelios would die to secure his clan a better life. He had pledged his life to the Lunari, and it was a vow that he would never walk back on.

The Solari and the masked man were still exchanging words, each reply more coarse than the previous, but they seemed to have reached some sort of unsteady agreement. The man turned away from the altar and crouched down to inspect the ground. Iméra squatted to do the same.

As quietly as he could, Aphelios sat down and slid himself off the platform. His vision flashed an assortment of colors as his feet hit the floor, leaving him temporarily blinded. When he regained his footing a few seconds later, he moved straight towards the glowing weapon. As he did, his mind seared with pain as if someone had brought a hot iron to his head. Aphelios took a quick look at the wound on his thigh. The stitches hadn’t opened up. It was fine. There was something else going on in his body that must have been causing this unbearable agony.

As Aphelios approached the scimitar, he took a look at the group beside him, expecting them to have noticed that he had disappeared from their sight. The masked man was completely focused on disabling the traps. Iméra had a knife pointed at him, watching him carefully. The Solari mage was still lying on the ground. Aphelios would have thought he was dead if not for the fact that his mouth was still moving ever so slightly. Saliva was frothing at the corner.

“Wait!” the Solari with the crossbow shouted, waving his weapon at the altar. “Where’d the Lunari go?!”

_ Shit! _ Aphelios grabbed the weapon and tried to make a run for it, but only a few seconds later he nearly impaled his foot on one of the traps. His heart skipped a beat as he moved back just in time as the blades sprung out of the ground. He thought about stepping over the trap and continuing onwards, but his head was throbbing so excruciatingly he could hardly recall where the rest of the traps were. He would be hard-pressed to be able to avoid every single one of them and trust that his reflexes were brisk enough to react in time. Normally, Aphelios was rather dexterous, but in his current state, he felt rather languid.

The masked man’s visible eye was wide as he noticed Aphelios. He unbent his knees to stand up, but Iméra immediately pushed his head back down and ordered him to continue disabling the traps. 

“Keep working,” she growled.

Aphelios wondered what she must have told him in order to solicit his obedience. He had a feeling the masked man could easily have killed all three of the Solari earlier. Why did he agree to disable the traps?

“Halt, heretic!” shouted Iméra, turning her head to address Aphelios. “You won’t be able to continue much further. You won’t be alive much longer anyway if you leave here now.”

As she spoke, Aphelios noticed that the smile had returned to her lips. Once again, she sounded like she wanted to hold in a laugh to some joke only she understood at the moment. He scowled, unsure of where to go. There were likely more traps ahead that hadn’t yet been disabled. His hand still held onto the scimitar’s hilt, slightly shaking. Was it possible for him to fight his way out of the temple? No— it was extremely unlikely he could best anyone in a fight considering his condition. That wouldn’t help with the trap situation either. He needed the masked man to continue cooperating and ensure that they were all disarmed first.

Aphelios cursed to himself again. He felt so powerless. Was there truly nothing he could do at this point besides wishing for his luck to turn around? 

“Good,” Iméra was saying as the masked man removed the trap on the arbalist’s leg, eliciting a loud groan as the blades retracted from his flesh, the blood running in rivulets down his calf. The Solari dropped his crossbow and sat on the ground, pulling out supplies to tend to the deep stab wounds. 

“Now, heretic, drop the weapon. And you, walk the Lunari boy over here,” Iméra instructed.

The masked man said nothing as he nodded and promptly turned to Aphelios, who froze in place. He wasn’t sure what was going on, and he knew he wasn’t likely to get an explanation if he asked. Besides, he felt his stamina depleting by the second. Any moment now, he thought he was going to fall unconscious again.

One, two, three,  _ four _ . One, two, three,  _ four. _ Despite the fact that Aphelios could sense some sort of defeat coming out of the man, he still kept up that obnoxious pattern in his steps.

“Drop the weapon,” he said tersely. 

Aphelios could tell that he wasn’t a man of many words, but there was still an unfamiliar emotion to his voice that made its clippedness different from before. The man sounded forlorn.

“Follow what she says,” he added, the emotion stronger still. Was he begging Aphelios?

Everything in Aphelios screamed at him to keep hold of the weapon. It was what he was there for. If he were to drop the scimitar now, he’d surely be betraying his mission. He had to get that weapon to the Lunari Council, even if his efforts took his final breath. 

Yet, something in Aphelios compelled him to drop the weapon. His hand was still shaking as he let go, the moonstone sounding a pleasant note as it hit the floor. 

Why did you just do that?

You’re a traitor to the Lunari. You can’t go home anymore. It’s too shameful.

Alune would’ve done everything differently. You’re nothing without her. You’ve always been the inferior twin.

Aphelios’ eyes were welling with tears as these thoughts passed through his head. He shut his eyes. Compounded with the pain that was still coursing through his body, he wanted to just give up, cry, and wait for the night to end.

He was momentarily distracted by a strong grip on his wrist. Aphelios opened his eyes again to see that the masked man was dragging him back over to the Solari, moving in a strange zigzag-like pattern to avoid the still active traps. Surprisingly, his touch was warm. Aphelios followed him numbly, still engrossed in the sea of doubt in his mind.

Aphelios almost stumbled and tripped over himself when the man let go. He was face-to-face with Iméra, who grinned widely, baring her canines. 

“Good, good,” she said. “Now, you’re coming with us. We don’t want any trouble from you anymore. No fuss. OK?”

Aphelios was silent. He was still thinking about the man’s touch. He missed the warmth of it.

“On second thought...” murmured Iméra, narrowing her eyes and looking away from Aphelios with a mild expression of disgust, as if she had just seen something unpleasant. She fiddled around with one of the daggers on her waist. 

“Wait, what are you doing?” the masked man spoke up. “Give him the antidote!”

She chuckled. “What?”

“You said he would die within the hour, that the poison’s already gone to his brain,” the man was suddenly saying rather frantically. “Did we not agree that I would disable the traps and let him go with you, as long as you kept him alive?”

Aphelios hardly understood what the man was saying. He felt like his brain was shutting down— he heard the words, but there was no meaning to anything.

Iméra and the Solari with the crossbow burst into laughter at the same time. Iméra had to wrap her arms around her stomach to still herself. “You believed me? Why would I ever carry the antidote?” she choked out in between gasps, wheezing. “That would defeat the purpose of imbuing a deadly poison in my daggers, wouldn’t it?” 

“We’re taking him, dead or alive,” the crossbowman affirmed. “Look, we’ll reward you for hand-delivering our enemy to us by letting you go here. We’ll even forgive the fact that our friend Kalen is as good as dead here. You can go ahead, hop on a boat back to wherever you came from.”

Part of the meaning dawned on Aphelios. So he was poisoned after all. The wound on his thigh was stitched and treated, but that wouldn’t have done anything to exhume the toxins from his body. He couldn’t tell how long it had been since he received the injury, but it had likely been upwards of six hours. For what had to be a lethal poison, he was blessed to have survived so long.

Blessed? No, he should revise the thought. It would have been more blessed if he had died earlier.

Iméra pulled out a dagger. “You are already dead, but for good measure,” she muttered, as she moved to thrust the weapon into Aphelios’ chest—

_ Bang!  _

A shot rang out. Blood and pieces of Moon-knows-what spattered all over Aphelios as Iméra’s head exploded right in front of him. The rest of her body leaned in. Aphelios stumbled away, allowing it to fall over. The sound of the bullet continued to linger in his head, the ring echoing over and over. He realized that was the first time he had seen gun violence so up close. Rarely was mechnical artillery ever used in Targon and greater Shurima. As much as he felt abhorrence, Aphelios also felt curiosity about the weapon.

“Wha—” the crossbowman yelped, walking backwards. He proceeded to scream unintelligibly as he staggered right onto another trap with the leg he had just been tending to. Within seconds the thick mound of fresh bandages around his calf turned completely red.

Aphelios grimaced, averting his eyes away. While violence did not particularly affect his psyche, prolonged sounds of screeching were never pleasant. He hobbled backwards further, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. The masked man leaned in and put his other hand on Aphelios’ head, forcing him to look at the Solari who was still left standing.

“I have three bullets left,” he said, the anger hardly contained in his voice. “Not the leg, that one looks like Demacian cheese already.”

Aphelios didn’t hear a direct question, but the man was surely asking him one. 

“Scratch that. Two,” he corrected himself casually, firing a shot behind him without looking. “Kalen is jittering too much in the corner of my eye.”

Aphelios didn’t know what to say, didn’t even have the energy to talk if he wanted to. The man was awfully talkative now. Was this what he did when he was distressed? Slowly, Aphelios blinked.

“The eyes?” questioned the masked man. “Hmm.”

No, he didn’t mean to suggest that. Aphelios tried to shake his head, but it felt too heavy to move. The man was leading him back over to the altar. “I like it,” he finally said, but nothing in his voice suggested that he felt any positivity at the moment. “Robbing an archer’s sight. Eloquent. Artistic.”

The masked man fired two bullets in quick succession. Aphelios expected a shriek, but all went silent. Like Iméra, the Solari must have died instantly. 

It felt anticlimactic. Was that all it took? Just a bullet or two? Aphelios suspected that the man would normally have drawn out their suffering, but in this instance found no interest in it at all. He heard a sigh. 

“Peace and quiet at last, but...” the man whispered, his voice trailing off without ending the sentence. He put away his gun and hoisted Aphelios up on his shoulder, the movement a little clumsy.

He laid Aphelios back onto the altar, and then sat next to him for what must have lasted a solid minute or two. The masked man had his hand over his mask, deep in thought. Aphelios stared up at his captor blankly, feeling the loss of control in his face. He wanted to say something. The weapon. 

Please, get the scimitar to my home. Stella Lagos. The scimitar. He tried mouthing the words, but his lips weren’t moving properly. 

The masked man didn’t seem to notice Aphelios’ efforts. He lowered himself off the platform, walking away. Moments later he brought the pile of clothes and the moonstone weapon over. For a moment, Aphelios thought he understood, but all the man did was lay the weapon down, next to Aphelios.

“This seemed dear to you,” he said, gesturing towards the scimitar. “I suppose it should be laid to rest with you.”

He glanced down at the clothes. He continued to talk, the flow of his sentences sounding like a stream of consciousness. “And this stole...the material isn’t from Targon. Everything else about your clothes is Targonian. That’s why I wanted to know where you came from.”

Aphelios felt a sense of déjà vu as his eyelids felt heavy, ready to close.

“You’ve still got that wretched woman’s blood all over you. The Burning Ones, your people call them, don’t they? They’ll pay...” he muttered. “Ugh, even on your eyelids. I have to wipe that off…”

Moments later, Aphelios felt a wet cloth scrubbing at his face. His face was involuntarily relaxing its muscles, so he couldn’t even bring himself to cringe. Was this man actually hunched over, trying to clean the blood off? For what purpose? He was almost dead, wasn’t he?

What a deranged man. He wished the lunatic would just go away and let him die in peace. If he couldn’t take the scimitar with him and deliver it to the Lunari Council, then nothing else he could say or do mattered. 

“Normally, I take a while with the corpses,” he said. “Because they need work to look beautiful.”

Aphelios wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or not, because he didn’t want to listen. He didn’t give a damn about the man’s explanation.

“...Something feels so incomplete here. But I don’t want to change anything about you.”

How revolting. Aphelios wanted to tell the man that he did not care. Why did he have to be unable to speak when he wanted to be heard the most?

“I don’t even have a name to put to my work. No, it’s not even  _ my _ work, but I digress.”

Had he finally noticed that he was monologuing to himself?

“Enjoy the rest of the night, little hare.”

Aphelios was able to open his eyes ever so slightly. The man was finally on his leave, bending down to disarm the rest of the traps and blow the candles out while on his way out. One, two, three,  _ four _ . Aphelios paid attention to the pattern of his steps until he could no longer hear anything. When he was finally gone from the temple, Aphelios felt something strange in his heart. He had wanted the man to leave, but now that he was fully alone, dying on the altar, he somewhat wished for some company.

Darkness. At least that provided Aphelios comfort. Aphelios closed his eyes again, wondering if death would feel just like sleep. Would he be able to dream as he passed away? Perhaps his soul would cross the celestial veil in death, and he could have one last conversation with Alune in passing. But even if that didn’t happen, Aphelios smiled internally with the small satisfaction that he could at least die without the bother of sunlight.

Just as he thought that, he realized that it actually wasn’t as dark as it should’ve been. There was a source of soft light that penetrated through his eyelids, but it seemed to grow harsher the harder he tried to ignore it.

He opened one eye to see that it was the mercurial scimitar. It was pulsating with white energy, radiating raw power. It called to him, spoke to him. 

Then the voice of the Aspect of the Moon echoed in his mind, commanding him:

“Reach out, Aphelios.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Aphelios uses QSS.
> 
> I'll try to publish chapters about every two weeks, so expect this one around Nov 14th? I don't know how long they'll continue to be -- I usually aim for about 5,000 words, but both of these have been lengthier than I expected so far.
> 
> (okay update 11/14: next chapter will be slightly delayed, sorry! I promise to have it ASAP though).


	3. Before the Dawn Arrives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aphelios meets his mysterious benefactor.

The voice of the Aspect of the Moon wasn’t like that of a stereotypical goddess. For the uninitiated, the encounter could be mistaken for one with a malevolent entity. It was far unlike some of its brethren, perhaps falling on the opposite extreme of the Aspect of Twilight, who Aphelios had heard to possess rather capricious lightheartedness. This stellar being’s voice was low and harsh, and its tone commanding: it was not suggesting that Aphelios reach out to the weapon— no, it was  _ demanding _ that he do so. There was an emphasis on his name that carried an air of scorn, as if the Lunari had deeply failed the Aspect in some way. 

Which was fair. He didn’t think he deserved the stellar being’s salvation.

As Aphelios’ hand enclosed on the hilt of the scimitar, a jolt of energy rushed through his fingertips. For a fleeting moment, he felt an airy breeze, as if someone had rushed up right behind him. He turned around expectantly, but nobody was there. Aphelios thought he felt the presence of the Aspect right beside him. He heard what sounded like a chuckle, and then it was gone. All that remained was a faint opalescent light shining above him, illuminating the dark temple. Aphelios felt a rejuvenatory effect from the weapon. His head finally began to clear. Despite the fact that he had not slept in nearly twenty-four hours, he felt alert. In his limbs an underlying layer of fatigue still weighed him down, and he suspected it wouldn’t do him well to engage in another battle. But for now, he felt content and ready to move.

Before the light faded from the scimitar, Aphelios got up and swiftly located his clothes. He donned his robes, and then by force of habit he moved his hands towards his shoulders to adjust his stole, only to realize that he didn’t have it on. Aphelios looked down at his feet to check again, but all he saw was dark granite flooring marred by a tendril of blood. Aphelios’ eyes followed the trail back to its source, his gaze darting across the carnage, analyzing the Solari corpses several times over before he accepted that the item had been lost.

Lost?

No, that wasn’t quite it. _ Stolen _ . By the masked man, no doubt. But what did he want with it? 

...A trophy.

Aphelios shuddered and grimaced at the grisly realization. He wasn’t sure what to make of the whole encounter, and it would certainly take more than a day to process everything that had happened. He also noticed that he was talking to himself far more than usual, as if to make up for the lack of another voice in his head. Aphelios knew it would only be a matter of time before he could reconnect with his sister again. It was one of the only positive thoughts moving him forward and giving him reassurance. Noctum flowers grew underwater, and the coastal location of Stella Lagos was a perfect breeding ground. Aphelios usually abstained from ingesting the noctum’s essence so often since it could be lethal in large doses, but he felt that he needed Alune’s guidance more than ever. 

He couldn’t linger around for much longer. Subconsciously, he felt like he was waiting for the Aspect to speak again. Aphelios looked down at the scimitar in his hand. It still glowed with otherworldly energy, but he could tell that the Aspect’s presence had departed it. Only time would tell if it would come back. Aphelios never understood the mutable attitude of the stellar beings, and he was sure that he never would. He sheathed the weapon on his belt where he normally held Severum or Crescendum, since they were relatively easy to carry around. It was an awkward fit, but it worked nonetheless. 

In any case, Aphelios would get a chance to find something more suitable to hold the weapon once he was back home. He also desperately wanted to change out of his clothes, especially his pants. He felt ridiculous walking around with the fabric partly torn off, and cool air on the exposed skin of his thigh would make sure he didn’t forget. Aphelios understood that the masked man had probably only cut through the fabric to inspect the wound and sew it up, but the thought of the man doing that for him was disconcerting. Although he was alone, he still felt somewhat self-conscious and embarrassed that he was walking around in such a haphazard state. He knew Alune wouldn’t be too happy upon hearing what had happened, but he was confident that she would at least rejoice upon seeing the scimitar in his possession. 

It was the key to finding the Aspect of the Moon, wherever its host was physically located. He wouldn’t let this opportunity go to waste. With the knowledge the weapon could provide, Aphelios could surely wake the Lunari Council out of its stupor. He had desperately wished for some news that would drive the clan to action and reclaim their rightful place in Targon, and against all odds the waning crescent had blessed him with it. Aphelios was now indebted to the stellar being, whose motivations still eluded him.

How long had it been since the Lunari last heard from this Aspect, their patron deity, at all? It had to be a decade, or perhaps even longer. It seemed odd that his savior would depart without another word, but Aphelios chalked it up to the fickleness of the gods. He knew that mortals could never truly comprehend the psyche of a higher being. Nonetheless, Aphelios entertained the thought that perhaps the Lunari were still being watched over, that they had not been abandoned after all. 

Aphelios gave the temple one last sweeping glance before he left, half-expecting the masked man to come out of the darkness somewhere and sedate him. Briefly, he wondered where the man had gone. Where did he come from? Was he still in Targon, and what was he looking for?

Despite Aphelios’ caution, he still stumbled as he stepped onto a deep crack in the ground. Aphelios looked down and realized that he had been walking where the traps had been placed. He silently reprimanded himself for forgetting about them. It was fortunate that the traps had all been disabled and tossed aside. Otherwise, he would’ve thrown away the second chance that the Aspect had generously granted him. Aphelios couldn’t help but look back at the body of the mangled Solari mage, whose leg was still preserved upright by the trap. The scene still left a sour taste in his mouth; he wondered if it was wrong of him to simply leave the bodies as they were, and let nature take over.

_ Tch. _ Aphelios wondered what was getting to him. He wasn’t supposed to give a damn about preserving the dignity of his enemies in death. If it were the other way around, the Burning Ones would kill him and put his head on display atop a pike, perhaps in front of the gates of New Targon. There was no reason for him to give them any last rites.

He was dawdling around long enough. Aphelios headed out of the temple, transfixed at the sight of the woods that would finally lead him home. The position of the Moon told him that twilight was soon approaching. It had been a long time since he had such an eventful night, since the Lunari had changed their nocturnal lifestyle to adapt to the possibility of Solari invasion. Sentinel duty had been shifted around such that Stella Lagos was more guarded when the sun was out. Children and adults alike became active during the day and slept at night, with the expectation that vigilance was paramount in broad daylight and that the Moon’s protection would suffice in the dark. 

Aphelios reflected on the night’s events as he took a familiar path home. The forest was silent to the point that he felt he was encroaching on a ritual with the sound of his sluggish, graceless steps. He began to imagine occasional sounds in the background, like the voice of a young girl giggling. Aphelios highly doubted that the forest was haunted in any way; he was probably just slightly delusional after everything he had just been through.

Alune had remarked that the waning crescent was analogous with misfortune, but by his gauge he had experienced a few strokes of luck along the way. He had narrowly escaped two near-death experiences within hours of each other, which was more than he could normally say. Aphelios wondered where he had gone wrong, and what he could’ve done to avoid it all. It was right for him to fight the Solari for the moonstone weapon, he knew that much— but perhaps he should’ve ambushed the group instead of attempting to eavesdrop first. Fight first, think later. It was one of the first survival tips he had ever learned in his training.

And he  _ needed  _ to survive for the future of his clan. Aphelios hadn’t thought about how selfish he had been to disregard the repercussions of his potential death. The consequences would assuredly be grave, since there were hardly any trained warriors in the clan that were still alive and able-bodied. Many had been left crippled in some form in the conflict over New Targon. Aphelios was undeniably the most powerful warrior the Lunari still had left.

Aphelios often struggled with the thought that the Lunari massacre could have been prevented. He had fought in some of the battles himself, but not nearly enough. Aphelios’ biggest regret was not taking up the mantle of Weapon of the Faithful earlier. The elders had told him the constellations did not ordain his dispatchment, and he wrongfully obeyed them. Had Aphelios been on the front lines sooner during the conflict, perhaps the Lunari wouldn’t have been driven into hiding. Perhaps his adoptive family would still be alive. Pledging his life to the Lunari’s cause was his only way of coping with survivor’s guilt.

Alune had tried to reassure him that the blame didn’t lie with him, that it only did with her and the elders. The stars had destined her to sojourn to Mount Targon and unlock inner power by crossing into the spirit realm. It was true that she had been hesitant to follow her calling, unwilling to give up her physical body. Aphelios could never lambaste his sister for such a reaction. When the mass slaughters began, Alune had risen to the occasion. She was the hero of the war in his eyes, leaving in secret one night to undertake a perilous journey alone to the peak of the holy mountain. When Alune finally passed through the celestial veil, she discovered five moonstone weapons that were thought to have been lost about two hundred years ago. With her newfound power, she refined each individual armament and was able to lend them to the physical realm for temporary periods of time. 

It wasn’t until Aphelios came to the elders with Calibrum and Severum in tow that they finally relented and allowed him to join the fray. After some trial and error, Aphelios became comfortable with the various weapons and found ways to execute his enemies with swift ease in any circumstance. The versatility that the arsenal provided was unparalleled. With Alune, he could defeat minor battalions without additional support.

But it had been too little, too late. One of his banes had been magic users, who were able to siege from afar and counter the raw strength that Aphelios possessed in close combat. When the Solari began to take notice of Aphelios and plan their assaults in a way that specifically countered him, the Lunari had no other way to fight back. They were driven into hiding in the north, waiting with bated breath for the next invasion.

The difficulty that Aphelios found in fighting off the earlier group of Solari did pique his curiosity. They were no ordinary Solari warriors, especially the magic users and the assassin. It struck Aphelios as strange that they would supposedly be exiled, when they would evidently provide a great deal of utility to the Solari Order. They must’ve committed crimes of a heinous nature, perhaps even heretical. 

Yet that didn’t make sense. They weren’t Lunari sympathizers by any means, with their covetous desires to capture and kill Aphelios. 

The campfire. The rising smoke, wafting through the forest, practically calling for the group to be discovered in the clearing; the display of the moonstone weapon in the open, its glow especially potent in the night...

As Aphelios reached the end of the backwoods, finally with the fortified gates of Stella Lagos in his view, the dots were connecting. 

_ Forcefully  _ connected. The Lunari sentries were on the ground, with arrows and blades sticking out of their backs. A small infantry stood around them, muttering amongst themselves and occasionally bashing weapons against the locked gates.

There was no time to think. The gates had incredibly arcane layers of magic to secure them from intruders, but Aphelios doubted that they could hold out much longer against the Solari. He had no choice. Aphelios reached his hand out.

Infern—

Aphelios paused. The weapon usually manifested the moment his thought began, ready to fire before he finished telling Alune what he needed. Right. He was still disconnected from his sister. Aphelios had been so absorbed in his own thoughts that he had forgotten that she was supposed to be with him at a time like this.

With nothing else to fight with, Aphelios drew the mercurial scimitar. It had been years since he last properly fought with a sword, but it couldn’t be too dissimilar from fighting with Severum.

He immediately regretted the thought as he dashed forward and tried to stop an incoming arrow with a sweep of the blade. Aphelios overestimated the scimitar’s reach and swung the weapon too early. Luckily, the Solari archer’s aim was off, allowing him to evade the shot regardless, but already he could tell that his chances of victory were unpromising.

“Hold!” shouted an auburn-haired Solari clad in extravagant golden armor, gesturing to the archer who fired at Aphelios. At the guard of her sword and atop her shield were the same decorative symbols of the sun’s rays, forged like crowns. She wore a winged headpiece that, to Aphelios, looked like she wore blades of golden grass.

Aphelios recognized the motifs as that of the Iron Solari’s, the highest and most decorated order in the religion. He had hardly expected to be facing the Lord Commander herself.

Leona turned and moved towards Aphelios. Her armor didn’t make as much noise as Aphelios thought it would with every step, considering how heavy it looked. Aphelios pondered what could even break through the shield that she wielded. It had to be a Solari aegis made of sunforged steel, and Aphelios had never heard of any Targonian weapon or magic that could make a dent in the material. He knew that it was likely to have been specifically blessed to be resistant against moonstone weapons; if he were to fight Leona with the scimitar, it would be as good as fighting with a stick.

“Aphelios, Weapon of the Lunari,” said Leona, stopping a few feet short of him. Her powerful voice surprisingly carried a bit of a lilt to it, but it was resonant and demanded the attention of those around her. “It took you longer to come here than we expected.” 

That confirmed Aphelios’ suspicions. So the Solari were setting up some sort of trap for him, after all. He wasn’t sure how all the details tied together just yet, but it would likely start making sense soon. 

“We are surprised that you lived,” continued Leona, her words matching the slight puzzlement that her face expressed. “I didn’t think I would have to face you myself. I’ll be very generous with you, Lunari. Truth be told, I am glad we found you outside of your home and not within it. I only have business with you. I have no intent to harm your people, who are all still sleeping without a care in the world. They don’t know we’re here. They don’t know that we have disposed of your gatekeepers.”

Some of the Solari guards turned to each other and chattered. Aphelios could tell there was some discontent in reaction to what Leona was saying.

“ _ Silence _ ,” she said to the infantry, who immediately froze. “I know there are some of you who would like nothing more than to lay waste to the entire clan right now. But I believe the Lunari problem can be resolved with the elimination of just this one right here.”

She pointed her sword at Aphelios. Like the shield, Aphelios knew that it was an extraordinary item. Any contact with the zenith blade would spell certain doom for him.

“Surrender now, Aphelios. I’ll personally see to it that your people are spared. We have known about the location of Stella Lagos for months now, and it has only been by my hand that the Solari Order has not yet ordered its ransacking.” 

Leona’s words felt sincere, and he knew that she was telling the truth from what he gathered during his reconnaissance missions. However, Aphelios could not disregard his own principles to obey her. He hated the woman with a passion, knowing her involvement in the formation of New Targon. She must have been personally responsible for the deaths of Lunari by the double digits, if not even triple digits. How dare she stand before him now, acting like a proponent of his people? Nothing she would ever do or say would forgive her of the war crimes she had committed.

Aphelios knew he was practically unarmed. He had nowhere near enough stamina to duel any competent fighter, never mind the seasoned Lord Commander herself. But this was finally his moment for revenge on someone who had caused him so much pain. Here was Aphelios’ chance to reverse the Lunari’s misfortunes and fight back against the Solari by removing their leader. Now, he could absolve himself of all the guilt he had built up and find his redemption. He would not surrender this opportunity.

With all his hopes and dreams tethered to the scimitar, Aphelios charged at Leona. He started with a simple foreswing, which she blocked with her shield.

“Don’t interfere!” she shouted towards the Solari guards. Leona smiled as she turned back to Aphelios, who could see the adrenaline of a fight flush across her face.

Aphelios wanted to condemn her for so clearly enjoying the rush of battle, but he couldn’t deny that he always felt the exhilaration within as well. 

An image of the masked man flashed in his head. 

No, not like that. Was his own mind trying to throw him off guard? That lunatic thrived off the euphoria of death itself, not confrontation. He was different. He had to be.

Aphelios redirected his focus towards Leona, who adjusted her posture. Her shield was poised to deflect the next attack that he would deliver. Aphelios hadn’t been aiming his sword at any particular part of Leona’s body with his initial swing, but he would need to be deliberate. He stepped back and then raised the sword to strike at her head. The blade was met with the shield once more, sounding off a dull screech as Aphelios’ attack lingered some, testing how strong the material was and how steady Leona’s battle stance was. She hardly flinched, as immovable as Mount Targon itself. 

A straightforward fight would not work. There was no way he could brute force his way through this duel. Aphelios had to try something a bit different, perhaps even chaotic. 

He looked over Leona’s armor for a moment before pinpointing his next target. Aphelios sought to stab her in a more vulnerable area, aiming for the abdomen. In an attempt at a ploy, Aphelios tilted the sword upwards so as to lead the Solari on to believe that he was zeroing in on the neck. He planned to change his trajectory and thrust the weapon into her stomach, which would be left open if she raised her shield upwards to protect her head. The scheme made perfect sense in his head.

It did not go as planned.

Leona casually swung her shield around in a half-circle and knocked Aphelios away altogether before he could even get in blade’s reach. He was hit in the shoulder and his arm twisted, unable to complete the maneuver he wanted. Aphelios staggered, trying to keep his footing.

He swapped the scimitar to his left hand while holding his right arm behind his back, trying not to let the pain distract him. Aphelios was irked that Leona could simply win any trade by virtue of being equipped with such heavyweight weaponry. She didn’t have to think about the precise angle of her attacks or the pattern of her movement. For Aphelios, dexterity was vital in every aspect of combat. He couldn’t help but feel begrudged that if they were fighting on more level terms, victory would be his even despite the lethargy in his reflexes.

_ What-if’s _ didn’t matter in battle, though. Leona approached Aphelios, her expression stern and fixated on the weapon he held. Aphelios grunted as he stepped back, ready to dodge the swing of her sword. By the way her grip enclosed tighter over the zenith blade’s hilt, he expected her to launch forward and finish him off.

Instead, Leona sheathed her sword and outstretched her hand. “Give me the scimitar and surrender. I don’t want to break it,” she said.

Aphelios eyed her suspiciously, wondering what her ploy was. Again, he felt that she was speaking the truth. But why was she showing her enemy clemency at all? He knew that she would relish the glory of cutting him down in a duel.

“I only lent this weapon to the Solari guard in order to lure you in. I know as well as you do the value and sacredness of the sword, maybe even more.” Leona’s amber eyes blinked a few times in succession as she spoke, and her voice was tinged with...was it hurt?

Aphelios backed up further, shaking his head. A small part of him wondered what could be so alluring about the weapon to the Lord Commander of the Solari herself, but he had nearly given up his life for possession over the scimitar. There was no universe in which he would capitulate to her demands now. He reminded himself of his duty to the Lunari and the hope that the scimitar gave him in securing the clan’s future. If he could find the Aspect of the Moon, then the Lunari would finally have some leverage on their side.

Leona’s eyes narrowed. “The mercurial scimitar will not lead you any closer to her. Believe me, I have tried.”

What was she talking about? Aphelios didn’t doubt that Leona, being the host of the Aspect of the Sun, would know of her counterpart, but Leona seemed to be referring to a deeper, more personal connection.  _ Her.  _ The pronoun made it all the more apparent. Had the two met? Was Leona looking for...her?

“You will not find Diana, because she doesn’t want to be found.” Leona’s voice hardened, and the absence of any dubiety in her tone told Aphelios there was more to her words than mere speculation. “She has left Targon behind.”

Diana. Finally, he had a name to the former owner of this weapon. Aphelios would make sure to remember it. If nothing else, he was now ever closer to finding the Aspect of the Moon. Leona must have tried searching herself without success, but Aphelios felt confident that the weapon would give him a promising lead. If she were gone, why would Diana allow herself to be found by a Solari? It was presumptuous on Leona’s part to expect to be able to find the Aspect. Aphelios would not let the Solari sway his thoughts.

“You have put your faith in the wrong place, Aphelios,” Leona continued, a stern tone to her words as if she were warning the Lunari. “Nothing good will come out of your pursuit of that woman.”

Aphelios felt his blood boil. Who was she to tell him where he should be placing his faith? The Aspect of the Moon had revealed itself to him briefly and even saved his life. There had to be a grand cosmic plan that the stellar beings were working towards, and a reason for Diana’s absence from Targon. Aphelios had no desire to listen to Leona anymore— it felt like she was chastising him,  _ lecturing  _ him. 

They were enemies that had no reason to settle this dispute by any means other than bloodshed. He would best her and show her the vicious resolve he held. Aphelios reminded himself of the Lunari deaths that Leona was responsible for. In the name of his people, Aphelios would fell Leona by the moonstone weapon. Perhaps the blood of the one who hosted the Aspect of the Sun would call its counterpart to him. 

Seeing that Aphelios wouldn’t yield, Leona drew her sword again. Still fighting with just his left arm, Aphelios opened with a flurry of strikes, drawing the curved blade in random arcs at various directions. He needed to catch Leona off-guard. 

She countered with perfectly timed parries to each swing, this time by meeting his weapon with her own sword. It felt more fragile. Without the tremendous strength behind the shield’s deflections, Aphelios was able to keep up the onslaught, hoping to tire Leona out as she retreated backwards, barely responding to his attacks with anything but reactionary swings. He realized that she had consciously made the decision to switch from using the shield, even though it would unquestionably require more effort on her part. Was she truly that concerned about breaking the scimitar? 

It would be her downfall. Whatever the reason, Aphelios would ensure that it was a mistake to offer him any mercy in this duel. He now had Leona on the backfoot, and she was watching the movements of his left arm intently to calculate the angle of her next block. She was still gripping onto the shield like a crutch, even though its weight was slowing her down.

Aphelios paused for a split second before he executed his next move. He stepped to the side and swung the scimitar in a direction that Leona would be hard pressed to block with her sword. She would have to use her shield if she wanted to time her counterstrike properly. If she did, then Aphelios accepted that it might meet the blade with enough force to cleave it in two halves. Aphelios might feel guilty after the fact, but a broken weapon wouldn’t impede his mission. Once he reunited with Alune, he would be able to use the moonstone artillery to fight. The scimitar’s two halves would still be just as useful in locating Diana. 

In any case, just as Aphelios expected was the most probable outcome, Leona refused to use her shield. She instead took the extra second to reorient herself to deflect the swing with the zenith blade, and Aphelios took the opportunity to turn and thrust his right elbow into her stomach. He put as much force into the attack as he could muster at the moment, aiming to knock the wind out of her by crushing her ribs. 

Leona coughed and spluttered, bending over. She dropped her shield to hover one arm over her abdomen. He could hear and see her hyperventilating, but Aphelios couldn’t tell if the blow had been enough.

The plan had actually backfired on him. The collateral damage Aphelios sustained was far more grueling than anticipated. His arm was still in a defunct state from taking the bash of Leona’s shield earlier, and the pain intensified to a debilitating degree. Aphelios hissed, unable to concentrate on anything other than the searing agony that coursed through his body. It felt like every muscle in his right arm was lit on fire. He tried to hold the arm in place, but he couldn’t tell if it hurt less to keep it bent or let it hang at his side. Aphelios was certain that he had at least fractured his elbow. 

What more could he even do? He miscalculated. Leona had found her bearings, and she picked up the fallen shield. Aphelios didn’t feel the outline of any heavy armor where he struck, yet her quick recovery indicated some level of imperviousness. He was foolish for not considering it earlier; Leona was blessed with defensive magic, imbuing her with superhuman resistances.

Leona approached Aphelios and placed the tip of her blade to his neck. Aphelios tried to call for the Aspect of the Moon to come back, for the scimitar in his hand to release some form of powerful sorcery like it had done earlier. However, it was pointless. The moonstone seemed to glow brighter, but Aphelios felt nothing from it. He thought he heard laughter in the distance, but by the second Aphelios felt more and more sure that his sanity was slipping.

“The scimitar and your life, in exchange for letting your people go.” Leona pressed the sword into Aphelios’ flesh. Aphelios recoiled as the blade opened a small cut on his skin. He looked down to see a thin trail of familiar red liquid run down his neck, realizing how ironic it was that only minutes ago he imagined the Solari’s blood on his own weapon. 

Steadfast as he was in his wish to meet the enigmatic Diana, Aphelios knew that he would be breaking his vow to serve the Lunari’s best interests if he disobeyed Leona now. He was in no position to bargain, and she had made no promise to spare Stella Lagos if he died with the scimitar in his clutches. Aphelios looked around and saw the Solari guards still obediently watching the two of them, with their weapons at the ready. The chance that the Lunari behind the gates would actually survive the raid was nil. To Aphelios, the choice was clear: he had to surrender to her.

He knelt down and half-tossed the scimitar away. It slid a good distance from him, enough so that Leona could see he had no ruse this time. She withdrew the blade from the front of his neck and sheathed it. His blood splattered onto the earthen ground. Aphelios flickered his gaze upwards to see her pick up the scimitar and raise it up high. A soft smile touched her lips, enjoying the irony in using the moonstone weapon against a Lunari. 

Aphelios quickly squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that the decapitation would be swift. Would he still be conscious for a few moments after the fact? When does the mind completely shut down? Would he even feel the pain? Aphelios heard a giggle. At least this strange voice in his head would stop bothering him.

One, two, three, four…

What was taking Leona so long? Aphelios wanted to scowl. Prolonging the moment had to be a special form of torture. He braced himself to open his eyes back up, but when he did, he wondered if he had already died.

Leona had frozen in place, the scimitar in the air halfway through the motion of swinging it down upon Aphelios’ neck. He glanced around; the soldiers encircling the area were also unmoving. 

He felt a small breeze push his hair back. His right arm was still writhing in pain. Surely if he were dead, his arm wouldn’t be bothering him this much, or would it? 

Aphelios stood up cautiously, watching Leona intently for any signs of movement. He noticed that her eyes were closed. If he didn’t know better, it was like she had fallen asleep. The glow of the moonstone weapon in her grip intensified by several measures. Maybe he wasn’t dead. Had the scimitar yet again unleashed some esoteric force? Was he being watched by the Aspect of the Moon? There was someone looking out for him, there had to be. The Aspect was truly a benevolent entity.

“Tee-hee!”

A playful voice sounded behind him. Aphelios turned to see who it was, but there was no one there. He was about to yell in frustration. Could the strange voice he was hearing be Alune all along? Was this just some long-winded joke? 

He tried to speak in his mind, warning Alune that she was going too far, but he felt absolutely no one’s presence there. It was still just him: Aphelios, alone.

“Peek-a-boo!”

Aphelios spun around once more, gritting his teeth so arduously that he thought he might crack his canines. This time, he finally saw the culprit: a little girl. Utterly stupefied, he froze despite his instincts telling him not to let down his guard, to be ready to fight or run.

The girl couldn’t have been older than fourteen. She had long, orange hair with a single strand braided, the rest uncombed and flowing wildly. Her wide eyes shone with amusement— Aphelios noticed that one was purple and the other green. She was clad in light clothing and seemed to be unbothered by the fact that it was somewhat cool and windy. As Aphelios stared, she puckered her lips and leered back. Slowly, her expression changed from one of mirth to something more sullen. Aphelios backed up, expecting for her to lunge forward and attack him. He knew that whoever she was, she had to possess power beyond his reckoning.

She wasn’t blinking. Her brow continued to furrow, and something dark was brewing in her eyes. The mouth turned downwards into a grimace. Aphelios felt an apocalyptic energy emitting from where she stood. It was so faint that he didn’t notice at first, but he realized that the ground beneath them was shaking ever so slightly.

He noticed that a strange hole had opened up upon the ground Leona was standing on. She was sinking, her eyes still closed and her body fixed in the same position. As she descended into the earth, Aphelios noticed that the other Solari around her were experiencing the same. They all vanished before his eyes, and the ground became whole again. If he had blinked, he would’ve missed most of what happened. Aphelios wanted to second-guess himself and believe that he was imagining it all, but his instincts told him that the strangest was yet to come.

Aphelios looked back at the girl, whose eyes grew even wider. Her pupils dilated. He stepped back further, aware that he was in the presence of a being with immeasurable power. She matched his steps, moving her feet opposite his. She was even mimicking his breathing— he hadn’t noticed that he was heaving until she began to copy him.

With every step, two steps. With every breath, two breaths. Aphelios was unnerved. Was she about to open up a fissure beneath him as well, send him who-knows-where to be swallowed into the darkness? 

Then, her eyes brightened. She suddenly winked and stuck out her tongue. The tremors stopped.

“Gotcha! You’re just too easy to scare, Aphelios! I just sent them all back to New Targon. They’ll be asleep for, I dunno, maybe another day or so,” she said with a wide grin. Upon seeing his deadpan reaction, she pouted. “Come on! Don’t you have a single ounce of fun in those big shoulders you have?”

His...shoulders? Aphelios was flabbergasted. Nobody had ever pointed that out to him. And his name— she knew it! How?

“Of course I know, you dumdum! You still haven’t figured out who I am?” the girl sighed and rolled her eyes dramatically. “Zoe! That ring any bells?”

Aphelios pursed his lips. Was that name supposed to hold any particular significance? He hadn’t met any Zoes before.

“Okay, okay, uh...think about the time of day,” Zoe said, clicking her tongue.

The time of day? Aphelios glanced up at the sky. It was a pleasant indigo shade with rosy gradients. He saw a few stars, but not enough to connect any constellations with. Most had vanished. The sun would be rising soon; the night was practically over. 

It was...twilight.

Aphelios looked back at the girl, unsure of how to react. The Lunari did not revere the other Aspects; in fact, it was almost unheard of to even interact with any of them besides the Aspect of the Moon. With the way that she had so effortlessly banished the Solari— or sent them back home if he were to take what she said at face value, Aphelios knew that he had to be wary for what came next. Considering that she had saved his life, it was safe to say that Zoe wasn’t looking to kill him right now.  _ Right now  _ being the key part of his conclusion. If he angered her, he would probably be turned to stardust where he stood. But why was she even here, interfering in a conflict between the Lunari and Solari? 

Zoe huffed. Her hair was defying gravity and floating in the air, despite the lack of any wind at the moment. “Have you never heard of boredom? I’m not like the other Aspect hosts, you know. I’m practically one with my Aspect. So I have, like, way! Too! Much! Energy! All! The! Time!” The words were coming out in shouts by the end, and her voice was amplified to the point that Aphelios wondered if the Lunari in Stella Lagos could hear her. Or were they frozen in place too?

“Nope, they’re still mostly sleeping. Normal sleep,” Zoe clarified, closing her eyes and letting out a large snore. She stood there, letting drool come out of the side of her mouth for about half a minute before opening her eyes and uttering a loud gasp. “Oh no, what’s the time?! I overslept!”

Aphelios was stone faced. He wanted to glower at her, but he didn’t want to agitate Zoe. From the magic she had earlier demonstrated, it was clear that she was extremely in tune with the Aspect of Twilight. Hosts of the stellar beings rarely invoked spells powerful enough to teleport matter like it was nothing.

“Um, can’t you laugh? Smile? Ugh, bummer, why are the...always like this...as much emotion as a rock,” Zoe muttered to herself. Aphelios couldn’t catch everything that she was saying.

“Anyways,” she coughed. “You gotta do me a favor. Actually, two. You do owe me twice, after all.”

Baffled, Aphelios frowned. He understood that Zoe had stopped Leona from executing him, but when did the Aspect ever help him before? Aphelios was certain that he hadn’t met Zoe before, and he was sure that he would’ve taken note of a previous encounter. 

When Zoe spoke again, her voice dropped a few octaves: 

“You don’t remember?”

Ah.

Of course.

Aphelios felt like something in him died. He was beyond crestfallen, his mental anguish distracting him from the physical pain in his arm. It wasn’t the Aspect of the Moon that had saved him after all. Here he was, holding onto the small hope that the Lunari’s patron Aspect had still been acting as the clan’s guardian. How had he been so naive? It had never made sense from the start; if the Aspect had cared at all, it would’ve intervened from the start of this madness, on the fateful day two years ago that the Solari declared them heretics to be driven out of the continent. Aphelios had attributed the lack of reason to fickleness. It was a fallible conclusion, one that he should’ve analyzed more deeply. In his heart, he must’ve known that something or someone else saved him. He had turned a blind eye out of desperation, in order to latch onto some sort of guiding light for the Lunari.

The fact that the Aspect of Twilight had saved him twice made him feel shame. He knew he should feel grateful to Zoe for her actions, but he had been intentionally led on. She knew that he would identify the voice and believe her to be the Aspect of the Moon. Now, he was indebted to her, and he had no choice but to comply with her demands. Destroying Stella Lagos might be a heavy decision for someone like Leona, who Aphelios had to admit possessed some degree of human integrity. For Zoe, Aphelios imagined that the eradication of his people would be a trivial task. He imagined that she found plenty of amusement through meddling in eschatological affairs.

Although she had the appearance of a young girl, Zoe was manipulative and devious. She had saved him out of self-proclaimed boredom, but what was she planning with him?

Zoe smirked and batted her eyelids at him. She twirled her braid in her finger and rubbed her other hand on her chin, apparently deep in thought.

“Weeeellll,” she said, intending to answer the questions that she could see plainly in Aphelios’ mind, “one, I’ve been trying to take a nap in my favorite little alcove up on Mount Targon, but there’s too much ruckus going on beyond the celestial veil. Would you go calm a girl down? I tried to pretend to be you, buuuuut she saw right through it.”

Alune. Aphelios felt immensely guilty. He knew that she must’ve been agonizing the whole night, not being able to communicate with him during such a dire time. Her sacrifice was one that Aphelios felt he could never truly make up for; nothing he could do would equate giving up one’s presence in the physical realm to serve the Lunari from the spirit realm.

“And two, hmmmm…” Zoe bit her lip. 

Why was she hesitating?

“We, the Aspects, can only interfere in mortal affairs to a certain extent,” she said, her tone suddenly more serious. “That is, we can  _ save  _ lives, but...we actually can’t take them. I mean, I  _ guess _ I could figure out a way indirectly, but...okay, well, some human tried to hurt my pet dragon.”

Aphelios had an ominous feeling. Zoe was about to task him with killing someone. Under any other circumstance, Aphelios might have sighed in relief for an ask so simple. But this time, he was sure that this wouldn’t be an ordinary hit.

Zoe sniffled. Her eyes watered with tears, her pupils glittering in the twilight. Aphelios was alarmed at how quickly her mood changed. The air around him felt colder, despite the sunrise coming up behind them. Her hair stopped floating; it sank down, covering her eyes. She brushed it aside and buried her face in her hands. Aphelios wondered if he should reach out to her reassuringly. This time, her emotions seemed genuine.

“I-I can’t let it go unpunished,” she choked out, full on sobbing. “Soly was shot  _ four _ times.”

His blood froze. 

“Aphelios, would you kindly…?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally done!! This chapter is dedicated to all my ADC's who've gotten solo killed by a support before.
> 
> Next is chapter ....FOUR. I wonder who's going to play a big part here???? 
> 
> I'll probably publish after Thanksgiving -- don't want to put a specific date on it this time, but expect a new chapter early December! Thanks for reading. I'm super humbled if you're enjoying it so far and hope I can continue to deliver quality writing! <3


	4. Blood On My Hands, Blood On My Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW/TW: Child Abuse, Animal Death (Adding this to the tags).

Once upon a time in the towns of southern Ionia, demons ran rampant, evoking primal fears in the hearts of many. In the midst of this mayhem, villagers drew arms and embarked on regular missions to scout for and eliminate all threats. It was in this context that a man decided he would take his son hunting for the first time, yearning for a helping hand. The boy was hardly the age of twelve, and he was reluctant to join his father, preferring to spend time indoors playing the violin or with paints and canvases. They reached what the father considered a compromise, although it was quite one-sided: if the son refused, then his artworks in the house would all be discarded. Not wanting to upset his father further, the boy had to acquiesce.

Though few knew of it at the time, the child held a whimsical genius to whatever he set his mind to. Despite his young age, he possessed a surgical precision with his brushwork. Visitors to the family’s home always gawked at the works hung around the home, ranging from abstract depictions of nature to realistic portraits. Wanting their child’s artistic gifts to remain undisclosed, the parents made up a name for the creator of these works, ‘Nih Jak Ahd,’ and called him a family friend. Though the boy didn’t understand why, his parents never commended him for his talent. Instead, he was berated for not learning more  _ practical  _ skills. The boy’s father could only hope that there were better talents waiting to be unraveled. Could the child wield a weapon as well as he did an artistic tool?

Demon hunting was to be no trivial task. In the summer months leading up to the planned expedition, the boy was embroiled in a hell he never asked for. His musical and artistic instruments were locked up. He was forced to spend every waking moment in the dojo that his father owned and operated, brawling students that were far older and more experienced. His identity as the dojo master’s son was kept secret in case it would impel any hesitation from the other party’s blows. But in truth, the other students scarcely needed any motivation to hold nothing back; for the most part, they were more than eager to treat the boy as a punching bag. He became an outlet for their frustrations in learning the dojo’s notoriously difficult techniques. Though the boy didn’t know it at the time, his father’s dojo was experiencing a downwards trend in enrollment; only the most dedicated students stayed. Most transferred to rival schools of martial arts.

The boy lost count of how many injuries he suffered over those three months of training. It became routine for him to lose feeling in one part of the body or another. He couldn’t count the number of bruises properly, because the dark spots all blended together. At the end of every night, a healer was brought in and instructed to mend only the most debilitating of the boy’s impairments—nothing more. 

“Strength is pain,” the healer said every night, mindlessly echoing his father’s dogma.

Nobody showed him any genuine sympathy. In every look, every word, and every attack the boy sensed deep levels of disparagement. Belying every action against him was an accusation of his worthlessness. It wasn’t just his parents; he sensed in his peers and the other adults around him that none of them would care to raise a son who could only paint or play music for a living. Most Ionians were bred with a deeply seated warrior culture, one that prized the mastery of combat. Obtaining a licensed proficiency from a dojo in a form of martial arts was in itself a rite of passage into manhood. The boy was disinterested in such qualifications. All he wanted was the freedom to return to the hobbies that actually brought him some semblance of contentment in his miserable life.

During a rare opportunity where he was able to sneak out of the dojo for a period of time, the boy prioritized searching for his painting supplies. Without much difficulty, he found a cabinet where he suspected his treasures had been stowed away, but he had no clue where the key was. The urge to create, to  _ perform  _ was overwhelming. He needed to unravel his thoughts onto a blank canvas before they engulfed him from within. His heart heavy, he returned empty-handed back to what he considered a torture chamber. With every passing day, he felt what he could only deem as an inner darkness seed itself deeper and deeper in his psyche.

The boy was convinced that he was not fit to embody Ionian virtues and values, that he would suffocate under the weight of his misery. He once entertained a noble endeavor where he’d make a place for the arts in this land, but the boy doubted that he could rouse any real change. It would take more than his lone effort, even if he found a way for the public to ascribe him any credibility. He had read enough to see the connection between the Ionian conquests of Vastayan lands and the people’s subsequent complacency in their power. For the status quo to become different, the Ionians would have to be bested at their own game; it would take a larger force to give them a wake-up call.

His mother was a lost cause as well. She failed to offer him any modicum of support, entering the dojo about twice a day to offer him sustenance and rehearsed apologies, of which only the former he acknowledged. The boy had never heard such empty words in his life than in those weeks: if she truly cared, then she would have taken him and fled. For years, the boy had sensed discontent from his father regarding his lack of interest in learning any martial arts. It was inevitable that he would finally act upon his resentment. The boy wondered if the demon hunt was only a pretext for his father’s true motivation, and if he had shackled himself to something greater by agreeing to be trained. Perhaps he should have refused. Better his paintings be shattered than his whole being.

The days were simultaneously blurred yet distinct; they were filled with pain, but the composition of that pain was always different. Sometimes it was his body that failed him more; other times, it was his mind. It was so varied that the variation itself became routine.

On the last day of the second month, the boy felt as though he wanted to break apart—both literally and figuratively. When he saw his mother come around to the dojo around lunchtime, he had begged her to help him. Erroneously interpreting her silence as encouragement to continue on, the boy dared to suggest that they leave his father and Ionia behind. 

In response, his mother coldly shed her mask of sympathy and ignored his pleas, only promising that she would tell the healer to leave some choice injuries as is. His mother’s reaction was more injurious to him than expected; the blows he suffered that day in training felt like light taps in comparison. By nightfall, the boy struggled to breathe properly through his sobbing. He couldn’t stop shaking, even when he forced himself to try and lie still on the ground. The boy started digging his nails into the hardwood floor, clawing down so intensely that the tips were bruising. Blood pounded in his ears, and he felt his chest contract so tightly that he was sure he was about to die. He wanted to scream, but his mouth felt dry and breathless. His despair was to the point that he no longer cared what anyone thought of his desolate state. The boy’s only hope left was the healer. Surely upon seeing his sorry state, they would forget whatever his mother had ordained. 

Someone was approaching. He heard footsteps, but something wasn’t right. The healer always walked calmly, lightly treading on the ground. This was different.

It was his father. He knew by the quick, aggressive tempo. The dojo master himself rarely came by at the end of a training session. The son knew that the man had no intention of simply checking in. Yet temporarily, the dread in him subsided. His heartbeat slowed. The boy was so desperate that he clung onto the sliver of childhood innocence left within him that dared to believe the visit would bring good news.

The man’s expression hardened when he saw his son lying on the ground.

“Get up,” he demanded. 

The boy’s trepidation returned as quickly as it had left. His teeth were chattering; it felt like the room temperature had dropped. Briefly, he wondered if he should play dead. Maybe it would spark some paternal instinct in the man to show an ounce of care...would it?

The dread in him already offered the answer, and it was negative. If he ever died, the man would probably kick his deceased body in anger and condemn his soul to the Shadow Isles. If he tried to fool his father, then he’d end up as a corpse and the outcome would be the same. Besides, his heart was beating so fast again that he would be found out in less than a second.

So, reluctantly, the boy got to his feet. It hurt to stand up straight; he had to lean forward like a hunchback. It felt like his stomach was twisted in a knot, and it took all his willpower to resist vomiting right in front of his father.

“Look at me, boy.”

But the boy couldn’t focus. He knew his eyes were darting about the room, but it wasn’t like he was actively trying to avert his gaze away from his father. He knew it would be taken as disrespect, but it wasn’t intentional. He wanted to at least sit back down, but he had to keep standing. It was an odd feeling; he had never experienced such sensation before, or more precisely a lack thereof. Had he lost control over his own body?

“ _ Look at me!” _ the man screamed, coming closer and putting his hands on his son’s shoulders, shaking him wildly.

The boy gulped and swallowed his bile down. The last thing he wanted was to retch over his father’s clothes. He whimpered as he concentrated his hardest to look into his father’s eyes. Even after the man let go, the boy felt the rest of his body continue shaking, his facial muscles involuntarily spasming as he gritted his teeth and tried to hold the gaze. He was thankful that it was sufficiently late for the dojo, which relied on natural sources of light, to be dark enough that his father couldn’t see his tear-splotched face all that clearly. 

“Pathetic. Have these two months only made you weaker? I didn’t think I would have to step in myself to force the Ionian fervor in you to awaken. You are worthless if you cannot.” 

The jargon was meaningless and all too familiar. When the boy had told his mother he wanted them to leave the island country altogether, it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment request. He knew he had to be some freak of nature; he possessed no intrinsic desire to fight, unlike his father and all of his peers. If that was what it meant to be Ionian, then  _ Ionia be damned _ . 

They were all savages. Maybe he was the normal one all along. Yes, that was it. The revelation soothed his mind, the terror he was feeling slowly washing away. The boy had been thinking about it the wrong way all this time. He was not the freak. He was common. Plain. 

“Is that smile a challenge?” his father demanded.

Had he been smiling? The boy didn’t realize the corners of his mouth had twitched upwards until his father made mention of it. He wanted to keep his expression in check, but his mind was working against him. Finally, he managed to give a clumsy jerk of his head to answer no in response.

The middle-aged man scowled. “You won’t leave here tonight until you demonstrate that you’ve learned  _ something _ .” To emphasize his point, he walked over and closed the sliding door shut, cutting off the limited moonlight from outside. The dojo was now completely black; this didn’t scare the boy as much as the dread that continued to mount up within him.

“You have until dawn to land a single hit on me. No need for expression of chi techniques or anything. Just one hit.”

When the boy didn’t reply, the father repeated himself and added: “Do you understand me, boy?”

“Yes,” he uttered at last, hoping his voice did not betray the anxiety he felt. “I understand, Father.”

The task was nigh impossible in the darkness. The boy tried to listen closely for any sounds, but he could only hear the sound of his own heavy breathing—and chattering teeth.

Was his father standing still, waiting for him to approach? He couldn’t tell where he was in relation to the rest of the room, never mind where another person could be. Cautiously, he walked across, his hands outstretched to see if he would bump into anything—

The boy yelped as he felt a sudden force on his back, knocking him down to fall flat on his face. He hit his jaw squarely on the floor. If his teeth grinding didn’t guarantee it would hurt later, this surely would. He moaned as he rubbed the side of his chin.

“Get up and try again,” his father growled.

This time, the boy kept his arms closer to his body as he moved. He tried to think of a way to find his father in the dark. Clearly, the man had no trouble locating him and even identifying the exact pressure point to make him crumple to the floor like nothing. 

“Less thinking, more sensing,” was the next quip as the exact same thing repeated itself; the boy suddenly found himself splayed out on the ground again. 

Again and again, the boy stood up only to find his face touching the ground before a minute had elapsed with each attempt. He felt his recovery slowing; each time, it took him longer to regain his balance and get back on his feet. The boy thought that he could begin to anticipate which direction the following attack would come from, but his father approached him from a different angle every time. He didn’t want to know what kind of strange pattern the bruises would make on his body the next morning. It didn’t help that he was still shuddering the whole time, an indescribable paranoia and anxiety enveloping the movement of his limbs.

The boy lost count of how many times he had fallen by the time his father changed his approach.

“Why are you shivering? I’ll make it warmer.”

The words were sincere enough at face value, but he knew they held a sinister intent. The boy looked up from where he was lying down and winced as he suddenly was faced with a bright light— his father lit a magic-enhanced match and had brought it right in front of his eyes. He looked away nervously.

Then, a few moments later, he heard the clang of metal. His father had pulled out something from the armory. Out of curiosity, the boy glanced over to see the man hold the lit match against the tip of a iron rod—

“P-please, no!” he screamed, tears streaming down his face again as the man came closer, wielding the heated rod. The boy scrambled to his feet, backing up and continuing to yell unintelligibly.

“So now you’re energized!” his father exclaimed. “Come on, hit me once and this will all be over.”

He could now identify the man in the darkness by the glow of white-red molten iron— not that this new development in the series of events granted him any reassurance, but rather the opposite. The boy was far too frightened to approach his father; if he could not land an attack while the man was unarmed, he doubted that he could do it now.

His hesitation came at a price. While walking backwards, he looked away from the direction of the metal rod for a moment in order to reorient himself. When he faced forward again, he was suddenly met with a blow to the chest. The boy tried to stay standing, bending over with his arms crossed over his stomach, but he fell to his knees and keeled over.

“On the count of three, get up,” his father commanded, the sudden excitement in his voice gone. “Dull, child, so dull. I thought the adrenaline would awaken you.”

“S-stop,” the boy coughed. “Please…”

“One.”

He knew what was coming, but he couldn’t stand back up. Everything hurt.

“Two.”

The boy wailed again. Maybe he could wake someone up. No, even if his mother woke up, she wouldn’t care…

“Three!”

A bloodcurdling scream escaped the boy’s lips as his father brought the hot iron to the boy’s right arm. He retracted it almost immediately, but the deed had been done— his skin was sizzling. He could see the wisp of smoke and  _ smell _ the burn. The boy nearly choked on his own vomit as his sobbing increased in volume. He made inarticulate sounds as he sniffled, feeling the snot at the tip of his nose. Never had he felt so revolting before. What did his father feel by instigating and observing such dehumanization? Was the man happy with himself? Proud? 

“I’ll count down again,” warned the man. “One…”

In his shock and disgust, the boy could hardly will himself to stand. He absentmindedly traced a finger over the burn, knowing it would sting but doing it anyway. He hissed in reaction.

Suddenly the same burning sensation passed over his left forearm, eliciting a shrill sound from the boy. He must have tuned out the rest of the count without realizing it. That wasn’t good; he had to get up again, he had to. Otherwise, the hot iron would strike again. And again. Until dawn. Or would it even stop at dawn? His father said he had until dawn to land a strike. There was no telling what would happen after if he failed. But what could be worse? Death? No, this was already worse than death…

“—three,  _ once more _ ,” the father snarled as he burned his son for the third time, this time on the boy’s right arm again, slightly above the spot on his forearm where the first burn had been. The agony of the first burn, which had been overshadowed by the second, was exacerbated by its proximity to the new injury. The entire section of his arm might as well have been on fire. The boy tried desperately to try to ignore the pain, but in order to stand, he realized that he would need to move his arms off the floor.

“You bore me, boy. I’ll give you longer. I need to reheat the rod. Ten seconds this time.”

He would take what clemency he was offered— the shred of leniency was what he needed. The boy closed his eyes to prepare himself. He just had to make the motion as swift as possible to make it work in one quick, powerful push from the ground.

“—nine, ten…” 

The boy mistimed the execution. He was halfway through the motion of heaving himself up when the iron rod tapped his left arm. He should’ve been ready for it, should’ve steeled himself, but his body tumbled in reaction before his mind could command resistance. While rolling over, the other burns on his arms brushed against the floor, rekindling a fresh wave of pain that should’ve subsided. On the verge of more tears, he squeezed his eyes back shut forcefully. 

“Come now, pretend you’re in danger. That your life is on the line.”

The boy didn’t need to pretend; he wasn’t too sure that his father would know when to stop. His hatred towards his father, while tangible for as long as he could remember, had compounded every waking day of this living hell. He felt sick of this life. He needed some other purpose.

Numbly, the boy tried to dissociate his mind from reality and will himself into a catatonic state. He attempted to fill his mind with images of his favorite artworks from around the world. He thought of the few happy memories he held, the most memorable being the Piltovan violin he received on his fourth birthday. It would be the first and last time he ever received a birthday gift— his father regretted the obsession that his son developed with the instrument. 

It all had to tie back to his father again, didn’t it? The boy could find no mental reprieve. He felt the sensation of another burn on his right arm, the current situation coming back into his thoughts in full force. How many had it been already— six? Three on each arm. He knew he wouldn’t be getting the healer’s attention anytime soon. These would be injuries that stayed with him, ones that would turn into scars he would carry for the rest of his life. Marks that would remind him of his worthlessness to the family, to Ionia.

All of this in the name of vanquishing demons, when the greatest one of them all was just right in front of the boy. The irony was not lost on him.

* * *

“You can’t just stop there,” said Ascha, aghast. She had leaned forward in her chair intently, her knuckles white on her lap. “How did he survive?”

Jhin smiled emptily, twirling Whisper in his hand. “He didn’t. He died a month later. What makes you think he lived?”

She rolled her eyes, brushing thick dark hair aside and poured two cups of hot tea. The girl slid one over to Jhin. “For someone who loathes Ionia so, you sure enjoy speaking in tongues.”

Jhin took the cup and eyed the liquid. It was a deep purple and had a fruity scent to it. “I could say the same to you and this tea. Vlonqo flowers and Raikkon berries? You can’t find any of this in a standard Noxian market.”

“What? I don’t loathe Ionia,” Ascha said simply, standing up and gesturing to the surroundings. “Just the people.”

_ Just the people _ . That was probably how Jhin felt as well. He took a look around at the psychic parlor that he was sitting in; it was certainly adorned with Ionian trinkets and decorations. He couldn’t even say the origin of the items were concentrated in a certain region. Ascha, the collector of it all, had certainly gone out of her way to make sure most areas of Ionia were represented. Jhin’s gaze lingered on the porcelain platters that lined atop a shelf full of glassy fortune-telling orbs. He recognized the design on those plates— every Zhyunese family had those in their dining rooms. Including his own.

“Jhin, you’re about to snap the wood off that chair,” warned Ascha. “Premium wood from the branches of a thousand-year-old tree in Omikayalan. I’d have to charge you for any damages.”

“You’d think the material would be sturdier then,” Jhin replied, relenting and setting his gloved arms on the table. He hadn’t realized the amount of pressure he was probably exerting on the chair. Behind his masks, Jhin relaxed his expression as well; it had subconsciously been contorted.

Ascha stood up, ignoring his comment. She walked over and opened up a cabinet, immediately exposing the room to an amalgamation of strange fumes. Jhin wrinkled his nose at the ungodly smell, which didn’t seem to bother the girl. She was probably used to it.

Finally, she brought over a pack of cards, displaying the set in a row face-down to Jhin. “Alright, pick seven.”

“What? All of that, and you’re doing a Noxian tarot reading for me?” Jhin snapped. “That’s not what I came here for.”

“I told you to tell me a part of your story that no one has ever heard to prove your identity, not some gruesome, long-winded tale in the third-person,” said Ascha, who seemed just as irritated.

“First— you were enjoying it. Second— it  _ is  _ my story. I just didn’t want to tell it in the first-person. Third— I prefer to think of it as the fourth-person.” Jhin wanted to scoff at the tarot cards. He knew they were fake and held no true magic in their readings; he was here for the real deal: Ionian magic.

“Fourth?” Ascha asked, pursing her lips.

“Fourth, I came here for a real consultation, not some placebo reading or to have my storytelling technique criticized.” Jhin gestured towards the orbs he had seen earlier. “So not with those glass or crystal orbs either.”

Ascha shrugged, gathering the cards and putting them back into the deck. “I mean, you’re just out of luck then. These ‘fake’ readings are the only things I do for my patrons.”

“Then what do you do for the Black Rose?”

She immediately turned pale. “What?”

Jhin smirked. The girl was clearly not expecting that question to come out of his mouth. No normal civilian venturing into the peculiar little Ionian fortune-telling parlor in the slums of Noxus Prime should know of its secret connection to the Black Rose.

Ascha outstretched her hands, facing towards Jhin. A faint green energy glowed from her palms. “You’d better come clean now, or I’m destroying everything here in the blink of an eye. Us included.”

Jhin didn’t doubt that she could do exactly that; the entire time he was telling the story, he was impressed that the girl didn’t shrink or flinch. She also knew from the moment he introduced himself that he was Jhin, Khada Jhin— the infamous serial killer himself, and showed no fear in his presence.

“The Black Rose freed me,” Jhin said, deciding he had nothing to hide. “From my imprisonment in Tuula. You could say I owe them a debt, much like I gather you owe them as well.”

The girl didn’t move. “Tell me more.”

“They’ve assigned me a task and even promised me a handsome reward for its completion. I accepted and am bound by contract.” Jhin’s resolve faltered while he spoke. He wondered if he was making the wrong choice to go where he intended to.

“Well, what is the task?” Ascha demanded impatiently, her eyes flashing green momentarily.

Jhin shook his head. “All in due time. I think for now, you should understand that we are on the same side. Calm down.”

She glowered at him, but ultimately lowered her hands and sat back down. The intense magical aura faded around her. A few seconds of silence passed before she sighed. “That was foolish of me. I give myself away far too easily.”

Jhin couldn’t help but chuckle in response. “Passion is a good thing. But that’s true. Now I know for a fact that you’re a seer, and I even know who you learned magic from.”

Ascha downed the rest of her tea and poured herself another cup before responding curtly. “I suppose you would.”

He wished that it weren’t the case, but Jhin held an overwhelming curiosity to learn more. It was rare for him to ever meet an Ionian outside of the motherland; most would rather die than venture outward. 

“Then you studied under Lady Karma?” he asked, pressing the issue. “Why did you leave her tutelage?”

The girl leaned back in her chair, sipping more tea. She stared off wistfully. “The problem was not her. I’ll always respect Lady Karma.”

Jhin wondered what the problem could’ve been. She stopped speaking, so he resorted to guessing. “Did you lose control over your power?”

He heard something that sounded between a choke and a laugh. “I was actually very proficient in my control,” said Ascha, coughing and putting her cup down. “No, I was shunned because the monks were afraid I would one day succeed her. ‘Karma’ is actually akin to a title or position; each past Karma’s soul is contained within the body, and so when the current Lady dies, her being and all the rest are passed onto the next.”

It sounded mildly absurd to Jhin, but he was sure that it was the truth. “How do they decide who the successor is?”

“They don’t. That’s why they were afraid of me— the souls find a young girl nearby to latch onto, and her destiny is thereafter rewritten.”

Something was still missing. Jhin furrowed his brow, trying to understand. “I still don’t understand. What would be wrong if you became the next Lady Karma?”

Ascha ran her hands through her hair and lowered her head. Jhin almost didn’t see it at first, but two tiny, furry pointed ears stuck out of the girl’s head.

“You’re Vastayan,” said Jhin, stunned. He would never have guessed if she didn’t show her ears to him. She looked otherwise human. “...I get it now.”

She grimaced. “Just a quarter, but that’s enough dirty blood for them all to disapprove of me. I left so as to not sully Lady Karma’s name with my presence. She protested, but I think it’s better that way.”

Jhin understood well enough what ostracization over something uncontrollable was like. “You left, before or after the war?”

“Before the war. Things are better now, but during, my shop was heavily scrutinized and watched over. They all thought I was an Ionian spy, and no words would convince anyone otherwise. A lot of Noxians just don’t understand the concept of an Ionian who would turn a blind eye to slaughter in the motherland— which I understand.”

It dawned on Jhin that the ‘girl’ in front of him was, in fact, older than he’d thought. Vastayans, even part-Vastayans, aged slower than humans. “When did you start working for the Black Rose?” he asked.

“About a year after I left and opened up this shop. It caught the eye of Emilia LeBlanc, the leader of the cabal. I don’t know what her motivations truly are, but she promised me she would protect Lady Karma from afar in exchange for my help.”

Jhin was suspicious. He had interacted with LeBlanc several times; she had been the mastermind behind the plot to free him from prison. Similarly, he didn’t quite understand what her plans were with him. That would be a question for him to ponder another time, though. 

“Does she need protection?” he asked. “The Navori Brotherhood may not care to look after Irelia, but I don’t think they have any reason to betray Lady Karma.”

“Exactly,” Ascha said, lowering her voice. “That’s because  _ LeBlanc leads the Brotherhood _ , Jhin. No one in Ionia knows of it, but she’s been a puppetmaster for quite some time now.”

The news was shocking to Jhin. He didn’t expect the sorceress’s political power to have reached that far. What was she playing at? He knew the Black Rose’s ultimate goal was to rule Noxus from the shadows, but did LeBlanc want Ionia under the organization’s control as well?

And what was she hoping to gain from the completion of the mission he’d been assigned?

It was easier to understand Ascha’s situation now, though. From her position, LeBlanc easily held Karma’s life in her hands. 

“It’s a hostage situation,” Jhin remarked. “If you ever betray the Black Rose, then the Lady is dead.”

“I wouldn’t think about betraying Evaine, anyway. She’s my friend. She’s treated me better than most Ionians ever have.”

Jhin wanted to retort that she was being foolish, but he managed to hold the words in. Although Ascha was physically older than she looked, she didn’t have the maturity to match with it. And  _ Evaine _ ? Was that Emilia LeBlanc’s real name? It couldn’t be; it was probably one of the few dozen aliases she had, only spoken aloud to the girl to lure her into a false sense of security. Jhin fully held no intention of becoming the Black Rose’s lackey like this girl had become. In any case, even the idea of ever considering such a criminal mastermind as one’s  _ friend _ seemed comical.

“That’s why you don’t intimidate me, by the way,” said Ascha lightly. “I know the grisly things you’ve done, but you went on a killing spree and got caught in just four years. The numbers are just a bit weak in comparison to anyone in the Black Rose or even some of the prominent families in Noxus like the Du Couteau clan. In Ionia, you might’ve been a big deal, but in Noxus, you’re just a small fish in a big pond, Jhin.”

He knew she was trying to provoke him, hoping to gauge a maddened response. It was difficult, but he managed to stay calm. “I know,” he said cooly, although he would’ve liked nothing more than to pull the trigger on Whisper then and there.

“Ascha, I have no intention of betraying the Black Rose,” Jhin said carefully.  _ For now. _ He made sure to leave those two words out when he spoke. “They did give me your contact information and this address, though. If I were ever to move against them, that wouldn’t be your responsibility.”

“I know it’s unreasonable, but if I help you and you betray them, I might be branded a traitor as well. You see what’s on the line for me?” said Ascha tensely.

Jhin didn’t feel like elongating this line of conversation any further; nothing he could say would convince her of his trustworthiness. 

“Then forget the fortune-telling,” he said. “I request your assistance on the mission the cabal assigned me, and nothing more.”

“Got it.” Ascha nodded. She put the cup of tea to her lips again, but then set it back down before she had another sip and stood up.  “Hold on, I’ve been drinking too much tea. Give me a few minutes to use the bathroom, and then we’ll talk.”

“No funny business,” she added while walking away. 

Jhin clicked his tongue and nodded. He’d never thought he would meet a fellow Ionian who gave the motherland up, and he was right. Ascha clearly prized all of the possessions she held in the parlor, and though she had left Ionia, she hadn’t left the Ionian in her behind. 

On the other hand, he had no desire to reconnect with his Ionian heritage. Objects of Ionian origin were only of interest to him when they were useful. Whisper, the magical pistol-rifle that he had recently obtained, was one such item, but it was an item of Piltovan design crafted like a Hextech weapon. He was reluctant to deem it a completely Ionian weapon. 

Jhin looked around the room again, but nothing really caught his interest aside from the platters he had noticed earlier. Although, something familiar was hanging in the back—

It couldn’t be. He was amazed that he hadn’t noticed it earlier. Jhin stood up and walked over, blinking his eyes in disbelief as he faced the dust-covered painting that was innocently displayed behind what he identified as pottery from Shon-Xan. He blew the dust off and gingerly wiped the canvas with a handkerchief.

It was  _ his  _ painting.

* * *

The third month of that fateful summer had largely been uneventful. After sustaining half a dozen burns on his arms, the boy had fallen into a halfway state between consciousness and unconsciousness. When he wouldn’t respond no matter how hard his father shook him or how loudly he yelled, a healer was finally called over. The boy was recognized to be in a state of shock, and the healer warned the father to stop the training. For at least three months, it would be dire that the boy refrain from any strenuous physical activity.

Although furious, the father agreed. The boy knew that the father only did so because the amount of shame that he would feel upon his son’s potential death in the midst of training would be too great to bear. There would surely be no end to the gossip in town as well. Of course, none of that meant the man would actually fully give up on the boy’s training. If anything, he would simply find some other tortuous method that left out any copious physical exertion for the next three months. Eventually, the boy would have to accompany the man on a demon hunt. 

In the last week of that month, when the boy was no longer completely bedridden, the father took him to the nearby woods. They were to embark on a ‘normal’ hunting trip; the man promised that they would only see ordinary animals and nothing dangerous. The boy could do nothing but meekly nod and hobble behind him, requiring a cane to walk. 

For what had to be an hour, the purpose of the trip eluded the boy. The father was wandering aimlessly, shooing off most of the animals that crossed their path. When they encountered a fox, the boy half-expected it to lunge at them, but it snarled and ran off when the man drew a knife. They weren’t hunting a single thing; it felt like a sightseeing trip more than anything.

That was, until the duo happened upon the sight of a white rabbit sleeping in the alcove of a tree. 

“A mother hare,” the father commented, sounding giddy. 

_ A hare _ , the boy corrected himself. He wasn’t too sure of the difference. He also didn’t know how the man had identified it as a mother so quickly until he noticed movement underneath the hare; there was a litter of babies snuggled up beside it. He quickly counted. There were seven of them. One caught his eye: a tiny ball of dark fur with white spots. 

Fiddling around with the bag of supplies that he had brought with him, the man laid out a net at the root of the tree and then kicked at the trunk, startling the hare and its babies awake. They scrambled out of the nest only to fall right into the trap right underneath them.

The boy felt pity for the animals, seeing them struggle against the net. Did they understand their fates? He wondered if they knew that they would soon breathe their last. The futility of their lives was nothing less than pathetic, but the more he observed, the more he realized the startling irony of his own thoughts. 

The father chuckled.

“Now you will understand why I brought you out here today. This won’t require much skill at all. I just want to know if you have it in you, boy. A killer’s instinct,” said the man, turning towards the boy and handing him the hunting knife that he had earlier scared the fox away with. “It should be easy. Kill the family. Point, jab, thrust. Slash, twist, split. Express the chi techniques you were taught, motions in threes.”

The boy wanted nothing more than to raise the knife to his father’s lips and threaten him to stop speaking, but he knew there was a good chance he’d be made bedridden again if he did. Trembling, he walked forward and raised the knife.

Which one should he even start with?

He locked eyes with the mother hare, whose red orbs reflected the same fear in the boy’s own. The creature was shaking uncontrollably, and he couldn’t help but be reminded of how he felt that night in the dojo a month ago.

Breathing in deeply, he approached the hare and blindly thrusted the blade towards its head, turning his eyes away to avoid the sight of gore. He heard a loud squeak, and looked back to see that the hare and its babies had backed off, hugging the opposite side of the net. 

The father scowled. Before he could deride him, the boy stumbled around to the other side of the net and tried again, only to yelp sharply in pain as the hare squeaked again and swiped a paw at him, making him drop the knife onto the ground. He tried to pick it up, but in his condition, he couldn’t bend over without losing his balance.

“S-sorry,” he mumbled as his father silently picked up the knife himself. 

Still not saying a word, which he found unusual, the man stared at the dirt that now blemished the knife. The boy wondered if the man didn’t hear him. Should he apologize louder?

Just as he opened his mouth again, his father pulled the net closer and suddenly stabbed the hare three times in quick succession, coating the blade in the animal’s blood and splattering it over its white fur and that of its children as well. And just like that, the mother hare no longer moved. Its glassy eyes were still open but unblinking. 

The boy wanted to cry. He hadn’t expected to witness such a rapid episode of violence; it was unusually cruel. The family had never eaten rabbit meat, or hare meat for that matter— the denomination of the expedition as a “hunting trip” was nothing short of facetious. He didn’t know why he had foreseen a different outcome for the day. This was simply the next evolution of his father’s torture, moving on from physical and psychological into strictly the psychological.

“Look at them, boy,” the man snapped, grabbing him by his arm and ignoring the boy’s hisses of pain as his fingers pressed on the sensitive spots where he had been burned. He leaned over and pointed to the baby hares. “The little ones have stopped moving too.”

“What? Why?” the boy gasped, sobbing and wiping away his tears with his free hand. He didn’t want to look.

“Died of shock, it seems,” replied his father, who seemed to be holding in a laugh. “Pathetic.”

The man let go of the boy and started to undo the net. Meanwhile, the boy was still sniffling. The life of those animals had been snuffed away so quickly, and for what? Was there meaning in death?

Was there meaning in life?

There was an inexplicable pain in the boy’s heart. He felt something visceral in him, gnawing away at his very psyche. It couldn’t be physical— it emerged from the depths of his mind. It was different from the Ionian fervor that his father spoke of, that much he knew— it was darker, more insidious.

As the father packed up the net, the boy continued to stare at the bodies of the hares, trying to rationalize what had just occurred right in front of him. If it weren’t for the blood staining the white fur of the babies, they could have been peacefully sleeping. It would almost have been a lovely scene.

“Let’s go,” said the father, swinging the bag of supplies back onto his shoulder. “It will be getting dark soon. Demons may be on the prowl.”

The boy didn’t want to move. “We’re leaving them here?”

“What? Yes,” the man replied, thrown off guard by the question. He was more shocked than irritated. “We leave Mother Ionia to correct the imbalance in nature.”

Then, the boy heard a tiny squeak. He almost couldn’t believe his ears. “Wait...wait,” he whispered. “One’s still alive.”

The small dark hare, the odd one out of the bunch, was twitching. The boy put his cane down and squatted, his legs shaking as he did so. The movement would probably require him to spend most of the next day in bed again, but he didn’t care. 

“It’s alive,” he repeated in awe, reaching his hand out to pet the little animal.

“Then put it out of its misery now or leave it,” snapped his father. “We don’t have time to dawdle around.”

The hare blinked curiously, nuzzling the boy’s hand and climbing onto his palm. It hardly filled the size of his hand. For a moment, it felt like the pain in the boy’s heart subsided. He was whole again. The emotion he felt was completely alien; was this joy? He realized that he was smiling; the notion was so strange to him that he wanted to stop and frown again. Even when he played the violin or got lost in his painting, he rarely felt such...happiness.

Its fur was as black as midnight, save for a few spots that were white like its brethren. The boy counted four of these spots.  _ Four _ . He would remember that number. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

It looked up at him curiously, and the boy could’ve sworn that the creature understood his apologies. It continued to nuzzle him as if telling him that it was alright, that it wasn’t his fault.

The boy’s father grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him upright. He yelped and dropped the hare like he did the knife, which scurried back to its dead mother. The man growled and forced the boy’s cane into his grip.

“Go,” his father said, pushing him towards the direction of the forest’s entrance.

The boy looked back at the black hare one last time before he reluctantly limped away. It was nudging its siblings. It likely didn’t understand the concept of death.

When he got home, he still couldn’t stop thinking about the deaths of the hares. Over the next three days, the boy could hardly eat and drink. His legs ached horribly; his injuries had flared up again for resting his weight on his thighs, even if it had only been for a few minutes. But for the first time in a month, his physical pain was no longer at the top of his mind. The more his thoughts lingered on the dead hares, the more he felt immensely guilty for leaving the living one alone. 

It would be insanely dangerous, but his regrets ate away at him: he had to bring that hare back home, no matter what. On the third night, knowing that his mother and father would be chaperoning a tournament within the dojo, he grabbed his father’s bag of supplies and snuck out after dinnertime. A few onlookers glanced at the boy inquisitively as he hobbled out of town with the cane. One woman warned him of demons that would come when the sun set and tried to stop him, but he assured her that he would be heading in a different direction.

He didn’t care about the potential dangers. He wanted to see the hare. The feeling of having it in his palm was almost therapeutic; the way it nuzzled his hand as if it genuinely appreciated his presence was completely novel. He wanted to relive those emotions again.

It took the boy longer than he expected to find the path that he and his father had been on. He was completely unaccustomed to navigating the woods; everything to him looked the same. It wasn’t an observation that he was proud to make as someone who occasionally made paintings of nature, but it was the truth. He found several trees with alcoves that looked to mark the spot he had been in three days ago only to realize that it wasn’t the right place.

But when he did arrive at the right tree, he wasn’t sure that he found what he was looking for. 

No— indeed, he found what he was looking for. It was simply not what he had hoped for.

The boy soon regretted his decision to leave the house. He couldn’t hold it in. He immediately vomited onto the ground, wanting to purge the sight from his senses. He coughed and retched for minutes, and at some point tears came into the mix as well.

When at last he felt like he could look up without spewing onto the dirt and mud again, the hatred he felt for his father had never been so potent.

A swarm of vultures were clawing and pecking at the remains of the hares, so busy with their feast that they ignored the human that had encroached upon the scene. He could hardly identify that they were even the same animals he had seen earlier that week, but this time he knew that he had found the correct tree. The fur and flesh was largely gone from the creatures; he could only count the hares by the number of ribcages. As he counted, he knew that he was informing himself of another fact that he didn’t want to know. 

Eight. One mother and seven babies. The boy was in disbelief, refusing to accept that the one that he had held was also dead in the mix. He screamed as one of the vultures spat out a tuft of black fur, confirming his worst suspicions. The same vulture looked up at him with one amber eye and screeched, as if telling him to mind his own business.

His body was acting before his mind could process what to do next. The boy opened the bag and took out the same net and hunting knife his father had used to kill the mother hare. Something tugged at his heart. He felt the same panic that he had felt during the night that his mother had reviled him and his father had burned him. The boy’s entire body was shaking uncontrollably, but this time his limbs were being directed to do something. The dark aura in his heart felt more palpable than ever, rising to his mind and suffocating his thoughts with nothing but a wish to make things right.

But what did that mean? How would he make this scene right? 

The boy wasn’t sure if the darkness was his own persona or a different entity entirely, but it provided him with answers.  _ What is wrong with the scene? _ it asked him.

It was disgusting. It was horrific. The vultures had thoughtlessly pulled apart the bodies of the hares, so hungry and savage that they left only bones behind, a shadow of what life had been.

_ Then make them see what beauty is,  _ the voice commanded him as he approached the vultures. Somehow, the boy’s grip on the knife remained steady even while the rest of his body continued to tremble.  _ The bodies are your canvas, their blood your paint, this knife your brush. What more could you need? _

The boy threw the net over the vultures. There were only three. With clean swipes and strokes, he blinded each of them and, as if he had done it a thousand times before, clipped each of their wings so they stopped trying to fly around. They squawked fiercely; the boy’s inner voice told him to imagine it as the applause of an audience.

_ This is your performance! _

He stabbed the vultures violently, each thrust with meaning and the intent to kill. One he lodged the knife deep into its brain; another he skewered through the heart; the final he impaled in the stomach. The boy felt compelled to run the knife through a fourth creature and was slightly dismayed that there were only three. For good measure, he lined up the vultures’ heads and sliced all of their beaks off in one stroke. There was his fourth cut, a twist on the chi techniques his father had tried to push onto him.

He was loathe to admit it, but a strange satisfaction swelled his mind. He felt...content.

_ You’re not done yet! There’s more happiness to come. _

The voice was right. The boy wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but his hands moved with the dexterity of a butcher that had cut up countless animals before. He envisioned a gruesome but beautiful scenery in his mind, and his knifework would make it come to fruition. The boy cut out the heart of one of the vulture’s, placing it in the center of his piece. Then, he removed the guts from each of them, padding the ground underneath the heart.

Finally, though it was a timely process, he removed feathers from wings one by one, placing them around the circle of guts he had laid out. With a few adjustments here and there, he finally stood back after what must’ve been a few hours, not realizing how much darker the skies around him had become. The boy had done it; he had made the ugly into the beautiful. The vultures’ parts were now rearranged to portray a lovely flower.

The completed scene lasted untouched for only a few minutes before the wind picked up, blowing some of the feathers away. But before it did, the boy relished the work of art, feeling an adrenaline that was completely foreign to him. He didn’t mind that the finished image was so short-lived; it would forever live on in his memory. The boy knew that there were countless more works waiting to be done.

He smiled genuinely, wondering when the last time he had been so cheerful was. The darkness in his heart swelled in its new satiation. Even when he looked through the bones of the hares, trying to figure out which belonged to the black hare by the little tufts of fur that still clung to them, his joy was unsullied. The boy could still take the hare home, and that night he learned one precious lesson: that the dead could still be as beautiful as the living.

* * *

“What are you doing?” Ascha demanded, tapping on Jhin’s shoulder.

He didn’t notice when she had strolled back into the room. He had still been staring at the artwork, lost in his thoughts.

It depicted the baby hare, its dark fur colored with four white patches in the spots exactly where he had remembered them. Jhin remembered immortalizing the hare in a painting the night he had gotten back from his slaughter of the vultures. He had expected to be exhausted, but a mind-numbing energy had continued to course through his veins until the work was completed.

The memory slightly amused him. That was the first time he had ever felt the bloodrush of a kill. That was the beginning of his addiction.

“It’s a pretty painting,” the Vastayan-human admitted, taking a look at what Jhin was peering at. “Did you just clean the dust off? There’s one thing that bothered me about it that keeps me from displaying it out front.”

“And what’s that?” asked Jhin, intrigued.

“The rabbit’s eye, it’s closed. It looks like it’s sleeping, but...I don’t know why, I get this feeling that it’s actually dead. But that could just be me. I don’t think an artist would paint a dead animal. Right?”

Jhin smiled. “No, I don’t think most artists would. Where did you get this piece?”

“There was a collection being sold in Zhyun some years back, all by the same artist. I think he was famous locally, but his name escapes me. Something like, ‘Nijak Ah’?” Ascha shrugged. “It was probably an alias anyway if it was a male, since male artists aren’t looked upon too highly in Ionia.”

Jhin tore his eyes away from the painting and began walking back towards the table he had been seated at earlier. It was a humorous coincidence that it had ended up in the parlor, but nothing more. He could reminisce more about his past another day.

Ascha turned her head away and did the same, although it seemed like she wanted to talk more about the painting.

“Right,” she said as she took a seat again. “So, your mission.”

“My mission,” Jhin drawled, twirling Whisper in his hand again. “Do you have a map?”

Ascha nodded and got up to browse through some drawers. When she came back, she unfurled a piece of parchment on the table and threw some packets on top of it.

“I found some sugar,” she said, answering Jhin’s unsaid question. “Want any in your tea?”

“I’m good,” said Jhin, taking a sip of the Ionian tea. It was sweet enough; he watched with mild disapproval as the girl emptied three full packets into her cup.

“I have a craving,” she explained. “So, what’s going on?”

Jhin looked over at the map, immediately locating where they were by the star denoting Noxus Prime on the center of the map. He wanted to scoff at how cliché it was to depict Noxus in the center of the world, but he focused on locating where he had been ordered to go.

“There,” he said, tracing his finger to a location to the south and west of Noxus. Numerous triangles emblazoned the region. “Mount Targon.”

Ascha leaned over and looked at the map, and then back at Jhin in disbelief. “Mount Targon? What are you being sent there for?”

“You’re concerned,” Jhin noted. “Why?”

“You know what’s atop the mountain? Or rather, who? You’re Ionian, you must know the legend as well,” said Ascha urgently, a tone of worry entering her voice.

“That’s precisely why I agreed to take the mission on,” said Jhin. “Two birds, one stone.”

He knew what Ascha was referring to. The entrance to Targon Prime, the celestial land beyond mortal comprehension, supposedly sat atop the peak of Mount Targon. Guarding the entrance was an almighty being said to have forged the stars itself.

The girl was dumbfounded and nearly spilled tea over herself. “Jhin, you know that the dragon god is mad. You won’t survive this mission.”

“Does your magic tell you that?” Jhin questioned.

“No, but common sense does,” said Ascha, slamming the cup down on the table and spilling a few drops onto the map in the process. Her pointed ears stood up. “I’m sure if you tell the Black Rose what we know about Ao Shin, they would give you some other mission. This is suicidal.”

“I didn’t even tell you what it is yet,” Jhin said, surprised by her abject horror. “I was merely tasked with delivering Aurelion Sol a message from LeBlanc herself.”

“A message? Does she know the dragon god in some way?” Ascha asked suspiciously.

“I don’t think I’m authorized to tell you what the message is,” said Jhin. “But yes, I’m only to act as a messenger.”

Ascha ripped open another packet of sugar and poured it into her drink. “Really.”

The word was more of a statement than a question, but Jhin decided to reply. “I thought you trusted LeBlanc?”

“Trust, yes. That doesn’t mean I’m not curious to learn more about who she is or her motivations,” Ascha clarified. “In any case, you had some other reason for journeying up the mountain, and it’s got to do with the legend, right?”

Jhin noted that she was rather quick to move the subject away from her thoughts on LeBlanc. He would want to find out more about their relationship another time.

In any case, she was correct. His personal reason to venture up to Mount Targon had everything to do with the legend of Aurelion Sol, or that of Ao Shin as he was known in Ionia. According to the myth— or perhaps story, since myth implied there was no historical truth in it— before the dragon god visited Mount Targon where he was tricked by mortals in the region and subsequently had his almighty powers bound, he had actually paid Ionia a short visit. During that time, the Ionian people showered the god in gifts and offerings, paying their respects and gaining the god’s favor. It was said that Ao Shin, delighted with their treatment, deemed the Ionians his chosen people and promised them great fortune. If ever the Ionian people faced a great crisis, the dragon god had declared he would rain down destruction upon their enemies.

Jhin didn’t doubt that this tale was mostly a self-serving one told for the purposes of glorifying Ionia as a holy land, but he wanted to know if there was some truth to it. It was likely that the ancient Targonian magic that bound Aurelion Sol’s power was still active. Otherwise, there were only two logical conclusions from Jhin’s point of view: one, that the being would have intervened when the Noxian invasion of Ionia first occurred, if it was true that his people were favored; or two, that he would have ended all mortal life indiscriminately in his rage. Since neither had occurred, Jhin was confident that the dragon god was still rather weak.

“Yes,” Jhin said, answering Ascha’s question. “My reason has to do with the legend. Now, I presume the Black Rose wasn’t lying when they told me you could help me get to Targon.”

Ascha narrowed her eyes, her hand rubbing her chin for a moment. She was clearly in deep thought. “I suppose so. I have a boat I take back to Ionia every so often. That’s how I get my wares. You could borrow it and sail down to the northern border of Shurima. I’ll give you the keys; it’s docked at the Rokrund harbor south from here.”

She rummaged through her pocket and placed a set of keys on the table. As Jhin reached out for it, she placed her hand over it. “Wait.”

“What is it?” Jhin asked.

“Earlier, you wanted fortune-telling. You wanted to know if Ao Shin would give you what you want.” Again, she spoke in a way that framed her words as a statement more than a question. She already knew the answer.

“Yes. If Aurelion Sol still holds Ionians in high regard, then it’s likely he’ll grant me a wish,” Jhin clarified. “But I realize now it was foolish to think you could look into something like that at all. There’s no magic in the world that could tell you what a deity is thinking.”

Ascha shook her head. “There isn’t. I can’t offer you that.”

Her hand was still hovering over the keys. Jhin furrowed his brow. “Is there something else?”

The girl sighed, scratching her chin with her free hand. “Sorry, I know I must be intruding on something very private to you, but I still have to ask: what do you want? What is the thing you desire the most, that you would go to such lengths to ask for?”

It was indeed a very private question, but it didn’t surprise Jhin that the girl was nosy enough to ask him. It was an easy answer, and he didn’t mind giving it. Earlier, he had briefly wondered if he was making the wrong choice to venture up the mountain and risk his life, but he realized now that he truly had nothing to lose.

What did he want?

It was something he had been deprived of his whole life, and the closest thing he had felt to it had been taken away from him a moment later. His eyes flickered over to the painting in the back, obscured in the darkness. 

“Love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longest chapter yet!! I hope the wait wasn't too long. I thought about splitting the chapter up into two, but 1) I thought it'd be cool to have four parts, and 2) I wanted to return to the main action next chapter.
> 
> There's a lot of lore/plot dump here -- I'm trying to set up some stuff for the future here and involve more champions/regions. I hope this chapter provides some clarity to Jhin's past and answers some questions (first and foremost probably wtf was he even doing in Targon??), but also opens up plenty of other questions haha. 
> 
> I took the part in Jhin's background about his father owning a dojo from some Reddit comments that claimed they were directly from his writer on the LoL boards back when those existed? They sounded legit. I did cringe the two times I typed 'chi techniques,' but that phrase is actually from the Jhin short story straight from Riot themselves, so...yeah. I didn't really want to delve into exactly what that was beyond vaguely associating it with the number three; feel free to let your imagination take a spin there.
> 
> Also, in case it's confusing at all, timeline-wise Jhin has his encounter with A Sol before he meets Aphelios. All will be revealed in due time what actually went down during the showdown between man & space dragon.
> 
> I'll probably see you all again in 2021 with chapter five. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


End file.
